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THE
BEST IN SCIENTIFICTION
A Complete Book-Length Scientifiction Novel
STRANGERS ON
THE HEIGHTS
By MANLY WADE WELLMAN
Will Gardestang and Aides Use Com¬
mando Tactics When Attacked by
Dread Demons and Devil-Worshipers
in the Unknown Realms of Psychic Ad¬
venture That Lie Beyond the Borders
of Reality! .
Imisual Short Stories
GET YOUR EXTRA HERE!.William Morrison 60
Henpecked Horace Perkin Travels to a Space-Warp
WANDERER OF TIME.Polton Cross 69
Blake Carson Rips Open the Veil of the Future
THE SERUM RUBBER MAN.Ford Smith 83
Meet the Crackpot Scientists, Jeremiah Doodle and Tobias Plast
BEYOND THE SINGING FLAME.Clark Ashton Smith 90
A Hall of Fame Classic Reprinted by Popular Demand
Special Features
THE ETHER VIBRATES.Announcements and Letters 6
THRILLS IN SCIENCE.Oscar J. Friend 79
THIS STARTLING WAR. News from the Science Front 89
STRAIGHT TO THE BOTTOM .Westbrook Pegler 103
MEET THE AUTHOR.Manly Wade Wellman 109
REVIEW OF FAN PUBLICATIONS.Sergeant Saturn III
Cover Painting by Earle K.
GET BOTH FREE
See How I Train You at Home in Spare Time to
i Be a Radio Technician
A Department Where Readers, Writers and Sergeant Saturn Get Together
B EFORE we lift the good ship STAR¬
TLING STORIES through the strat¬
osphere on this present voyage there
are a couple of little matters the old Sarge
would like to mention.
This time — because there are so many
ethergrams on spindles around the office until
the room looks like a billing department in
a freight depot—your senior astrogator has
glanced through the mail before Snaggle-
tooth started mixing metaphors. So, yeah,
I do have a general idea of the beefs we are
carrying this issue. And in my inimitable
gentle manner I’ll read you little ogres a cur¬
tain lecture.
This podium talk pertains to the cover.
There has been a little yammering from the
gas-room gang about the phrase “A Novel of
the Future Complete in this Issue” across the
top of the cover, accompanied by the com¬
plaint that the story itself “ain’t no such.”
Now, did you carefully reared and nurtured
junior pee-lots actually think that this blurb
has to mean a story laid in the thirtieth or
fortieth century to be called a novel of the
future? If so, you are in eclipse. Any story
that deals with any tomorrow is a yarn of
the future, and don’t you wise monkeys try
to scramble time in any other sort of omelet.
For example, Daniels’ story THE GREAT
EGO, was definitely a story of at least the
day after tomorrow. Do any of you wise-
heimers know of anybody today who can do
the teleportation and transformation tricks
that Rodney St. George did? Outside of a
magic show, I mean.
Well, that makes the yarn about tomorrow,
and just because the author didn’t call the
time as of 2946 and 34 A.D., choosing instead
to tie it firmly to times such as we know,
doesn’t make the yarn of today or yesterday.
At the same time, there are novels now and
then which are definitely placed in the dis¬
tant future. So you hair-splitters take them
as they come and don’t go so technical on
me, or I’ll give you an extra watch at spatial
course-charting.
The other point is the matter of artistic
liberties taken to paint an unusual cover.
Whenever you note, say, a human head on a
giant snake, before you start yelling for the
manager, remember that there is such a thing
as symbolism. (All you have to do is to look
at some of the fanzine mag drawings to com¬
prehend this.)
In THE GREAT EGO the huge snake was
really the entity of that dastardly villain
known in human form as Rodney St. George.
But how could the artist depict such an ab¬
stract idea without taking certain liberties
with the text? And this goes for most of the
other covers for other stories, see? Of
course, whenever you find a legitimate flaw or
error of some magnitude, then is the time to
squawk.
Now, before we get down to the business
of finding out how you kiwis liked THE
GREAT EGO, let me tell you what’s on the
manifest for next voyage.
The complete novel is a darb of a yarn by
Leigh Brackett. It is laid altogether on
Mars, and is very definitely laid in the future.
Which should lay the bellyachers among you
on the shelf.
No fooling, this complete novel, SHADOW
OVER MARS, is the epic of a space waif
who fights his way up from nothing to the
heights in a stirring series of adventures
which ought to hold you in your chairs as
though under the acceleration of twenty
gravities. But it won’t crush you. There’s
an appeal and uplift to this story which will
make you roam the stars.
Not since Marie Corelli have we had a
woman writer who could unleash her im¬
agination so vividly and set the pictures
down in such strong, graphic style. You
junior pee-lots first read SHADOW OVER
MARS and then write the old Sarge your
honest opinion.
The Hall of Fame Classic will be a little
gem of yesteryear called THE DAY OF THE
BEAST, by D. D. Sharp. Many of you will
like it, some of you probably will not. File
your complaints in the radio room on the
third spindle from the left. Snaggle-tooth
will chew his way through them, thereby
perforating them with the mark of cancella¬
tion.
Here’s one S.O.S. from the ether. Cor¬
poral Dirk Wylie, Co. B, MP Bn (ZI), Coun¬
ty Hall, Charleston 26, S.C., would like to
buy or borrow copies of TIME STREAM,
by John Taine, and THE FINAL WAR, by
Carl W. Spohr. Any pee-lot having any in-
(Continued on page 100)
What good is a *10.00 raise
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S URE we all want a raise . . . but raises
today are bad medicine. And here’s why...
Suppose you do get a raise . . . and a lot of
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that’s YOU.
So what good is a raise if your living costs
go up even faster?
Of course, it’s hard to give up the luxuries
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1 . Don't try to profit from the war. Don’t ask
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3. Pay no mors than celling prices. Buy ra¬
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4. Pay taxes willingly.
3. Pay off your old debts—all of them.
6 . If you haven't a savings account. Start one.
If you have an account, put money in it
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Use it up . . . Wear it out,
Make it do... Or do without.
I States War
MUSIC LESSONS
for/ess ffian 7*0 day/
The Mechanism of Mind
WHY YOU ARE AS YOU ARE-
and U/kat Ifou. @an *Po -@bou.t\Dti
D ID you ever stop to think why you do
the things you do? Have you often—
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Most persons are creatures of sensa¬
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be bent like a reed in the wind. There are
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if you understand them—make all this
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For centuries the Rosicrucians (not a religious or¬
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women devoted to the study of life and its hidden
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Amid the flames Gardestang paused as the creature laughed mockingly (CHAPTER XI)
STRRI1GERS OR THE HEIGHTS
By MANLY WADE WELLMAN
Will Gardestang and Aides Use Commando Tactics When Attacked
by Dread Demons and Devil-Worshipers in the Unknown Realms
of Psychic Adventure That Lie Beyond the Borders of Reality!
CHAPTER I
Old Soldiers at School
T HE war was over, and Will Gardes¬
tang had not known what to do with
himself. It wasn’t pleasant to re¬
member, for one thing—his training days
as a bewildered private, overseas as corporal
and acting sergeant, he and his Commando
mates floundering ashore and into battle,
and the deaths he had dealt to others, who
would have killed him first had they been
able. He hated to recall his best friend,
dying in blank surprise, with quivering hands
trying to replace his shot-out lungs, how
towns, once great, had been smashed to
rubble-heaps, the waddling tanks, soaring
planes, insufferable noise all around. Final
victory had found him too weary and
wounded for any feeling of triumph.
He had come again to little Revere Col¬
lege in the Midwest simply because it seemed
easiest to do so. He’d once been a fresh¬
man there, and now, years older in body and
centuries older in heart, he was a sophomore,
signed for courses in literature, psychology,
and education. And on a night in late fall
he stood on the porch of his boarding house,
trying to be courteous to visitors.
An Amazing Complete Cook-Length Novel
12
STARTLING STORIES
“No,” he said, slowly and heavily, “I
haven’t any criticism of Delta Lamda Psi.
Not of your fraternity, or any other. But
I’m not joining.”
He put his hands in his pockets. Gardes-
tang was too big and broad to be graceful,
with black hair still cropped army fashion,
and dark sunken eyes.
“I came here to study, and I’ve taken on
a stiff course. I ought to be at my books
now.”
Millikan, the little rush captain of Delta
Lamda Psi, drew up his narrow, well-tailored
shoulders. Neither he nor his companion,
Captain Baumgartner of the football team,
were used to having their proffer of a pledge
button rejected.
“Fraternities are for study help as well
as other things,” grunted Baumgartner. “You
know, Gardestang, that we’ve got files at
the house, with every worthwhile theme,
test paper and report ever done by the broth¬
ers? Dip into those if you’re after grades.”
“Maybe you’re thinking that Delta Lamda
Psi is a new fraternity,” put in Millikan.
“Well, it’s also the leader on the campus and
the post-war world needs leaders—young
men with their fresh viewpoint and energy.”
“No doubt,” said Gardestang. “I feel back-
number myself.”
L ITTLE Millikan made a fluttery ges¬
ture of protest. “I didn’t mean
that,” he said. “It’s that we want you with
us. There, I said it. You’re our notion
of an ideal Delta Lamda Psi man. You’ll
see what I mean, over at the house tonight.”
“I won’t be there,” said Gardestang.
“Fraternities are fine, for young lads. Teach
polish and other things. But I don’t fit in.
I don’t want to be rubber-stamped or par¬
aded or initiated, and I do want to be let
alone.” He paused, and eyed his embarrassed
visitors. “I seem to have made you a speech.
Sorry. There’s no reason why I should ever
have to make you another.”
“Amen to that,” said Baumgartner shortly,
and stepped off the porch. Millikan paused
a moment.
“I’m sorry for you, Gardestang. You don’t
know what’s really worthwhile in life.”
“Who does?” demanded Gardestang, smil¬
ing, and watched the two of them go. Then
he sat on the porch railing and drew out a
pipe.
“Congratulations,” said a soft voice from
somewhere.
Gardestang sprang up, glaring and tense.
A head lifted from shrubbery at the other
side of the porch railing. It was a dark
head, shaggy with curls. He had a pleasant
Latin smile and heavily lidded bright eyes.
“I was calling at the next house,” went
on the soft voice, that held a trace of ac¬
cent. “Challoner is my name—Enrico Chal-
loner, exchange student from Chile. From
where I sat in the arbor, I heard intriguing
bits of that conversation. Like a good sol¬
dier, I sneaked through the evergreens just
to hear. I say again, congratulations.”
“Same to you,” replied Gardestang, some¬
what coldly. “I mean, for creeping up so
cleverly. Others have tried it, too.”
Challoner rose. He was slender and grace¬
ful. “Yes. Adroit, those Germans. I was
with de Gaulle,” and he touched the ribbon
he wore. “But, though it was not my busi¬
ness, your remarks interested me. Frater¬
nities are all very well, but cannot suit the
thinker whose mind has matured. Suppose
I, as a rush committee of one, asked you
down the street for a drink?”
“Drink?” repeated Gardestang. “I’ll have
a drink.”
They walked together to the main street
of the little town, and Challoner led the way
to a single-story building of white-painted
frame. It bore the sign Lamb’s. The pro¬
prietor was a plump, gently smiling woman.
Rico Challoner dropped a nickel in a juke
box, which began to drone something exotic.
“One of the rum punches I showed you
how to make,” he directed. “Gardestang?”
“Whisky sour,” said Gardestang.
They took their drinks to a table in a
corner. There sat a compact, middle-sized
young man with maple-brown hair, a square
jaw, and the appearance of an athlete.
“Mr. Gardestang,” said Rico Challoner,
“this is Tommy Gatchell. Studying pre-en¬
gineer things. He could have stayed in the
Air Corps, where he was a first lieutenant.”
“But I didn’t want to,” explained Tommy
Gatchell for him. “I didn’t even want to
think about it. Sit down, Gardestang. Why
did Rico bring you here?”
“Because,” said the student from Chile,
“he is the third exception to the rule, where
we thought that we were the only two. A
man pursued by fraternities, who wants to
be let alone to study.”
“Study what?” demanded Tommy Gatchell.
His eyes turned thoughtfully to Gardestang.
“We’ve met, haven’t we?”
“I think so,” nodded Gardestang thought¬
fully. “Might it have been at Fort Benning?
Gafsa? Was that the place?”
“You two introverts are seat-mates in some
14
STARTLING STORIES
class or other,” broke in Challoner, and
smiled triumphantly, his black brows arch¬
ing upward. “Don’t ask me which—but your
names begin with the same letters—G. A. R.
and G. A. T.”
“Psychology?” asked Tommy Gatchell.
“Hmm. I think that’s it.”
“I think so,” agreed Gardestang. “Sorry.”
“We both came to be let alone and to
study, didn’t we?” smiled Tommy Gatchell.
“I bring up a question previously tabled,”
put in Challoner. “Study what?”
“That’s hard to answer intelligently,” said
Gardestang. “Before the war I thought of
being a lawyer. Now I have notions of writ¬
ing something, though maybe that’ll be the
sideline to something else.”
“You know I’m studying to be an en¬
gineer,” added Tommy Gatchell.
F OR some reason this information seemed
to excite the Chilean. He turned his
bright eyes on Gatchell.
“I know you’re studying nothing of the
sort,” demurred Challoner, in vehement
tones. His slight accent became more ap¬
parent as he warmed up. “You said your¬
self that mechanics were too exact, and that
life itself isn’t. That life has too many blank
spaces.”
“You misquote me,” replied Tommy Gat¬
chell, almost as warmly. “I said nothing
about blank spaces in life. I don’t think
there are any. I said that life is full of
hidden places, not to be explained by logic.
For instance, the mathematicians have care¬
fully computed that you have something like
a three percent advantage at dice by betting
against the throw.”
“The mathematicians don’t shoot enough
craps,” Gardestang almost moaned, think¬
ing of past gambling debacles. “How do they
explain when someone gets hot and skins
a whole army corps out of its G. I. under¬
wear?”
“That’s it. They don’t explain. Too much
chance and luck, if it is chance and luck.”
Tommy Gatchell looked toward the bar.
“Mrs. Lamb! May I have another Scotch
and water?”
“Chance and luck,” repeated Challoner,
dreamy now. “Coincidence. Or a well-laid
plan by someone. Something we can’t be
sure of. People found religions on it, and
not good religions. He lifted his glass, and
part of it spilled. He swore softly in French
or Spanish, and Gardestang thought that his
face, just now so gay, appeared drawn. Per¬
haps the Chilean needed to be joked out
of a bad mood.
“What’s wrong with logic?” he prompted.
“It’s unstable. Consider the simple syl¬
logism. Suppose we say that cows are lar¬
ger than elephants, and cats larger than cows.
Those are the premises. What is the con¬
clusion?”
“That cats are larger than elephants.”
“As logic, quite correct.” Challoner had
cheered up again. “But we’ve been to zoos,
and we know that elephants are larger than
cats. The conclusion rests on cast-iron con¬
sideration of premise, and if premises are
faulty.” Challoner spread eloquent hands.
“You see? There is the basis for successful
deception. Trick your victim into accepting
logic for reason. So we prosper in sleight of
hand, or military science, or—or promised
profits of many kinds. Logic is too often
a clever pitfall. I have as little to do with
it as possible.”
“Rico used to talk more about coincidences
and luck and so on,” said Tommy Gatchell.
“We dug into various unexplained matters,
even spells and hauntings and strange dis¬
asters. There was a man named Charles
Fort who tried to explain them once, and
he died.”
“I know,” nodded Gardestang. “He wrote
“Wild Talents,” “Book of the Doomed.”
“There’s a coincidence itself,” smiled
Tommy Gatchell at Challoner. “We pick
someone off the scholastic byway, and he
turns out to have read Charles Fort.”
“This isn’t a chapter of the Fortean Soci¬
ety, is it?” asked Gardestang. “Because I
won’t belong. I turned down something
with Greek letters about an hour ago be¬
cause I didn’t hold to what might turn out
the mildest of tenets in its secret ritual.
Fort was amusing, but he wanted you to
believe that the world is motionless inside a
solid sky-shell, with suns and stars and so
on all hung around it. I’m not being a seri¬
ous thinker in my time off, not even about
strange cosmic propositions.”
“Easy,” said Tommy Gatchell. “We’re not
serious, either. We’re seekers only. Might
call our little drinking society that, eh, Rico?
The Seekers? Anyway, Fort didn’t demand
that you swallow his theories. He never
even called them theories. As you say,
he died suddenly, while he was still digging
up data on monsters, meteors, vanishments,
weather freaks.”
“Ambrose Bierce, studied such things,”
added Gardestang. “So did Edgar Allan Poe,
and warned against such a study. Ditto a
New Englander named Lovecraft. And they
STRANGERS ON THE HEIGHTS
15
all died or disappeared—suddenly and mys¬
teriously. Every one. Maybe it’s not so
smart to follow his researches. I’d hate to
have dodged all the bullets the Axis threw
at me, and then wink out in some bizarre
way.”
“You are making fun, Gardestang,” said
Challoner suddenly, “but maybe you speak
sense.”
It had been some time since he spoke, and
now his voice was tense, hoarse, worried.
Both his companions stared at him.
“You’ve spilled most of that rum boiled
dinner you like to drink,” said Tommy Gat-
chell. “I’ll get Mrs. Lamb to make you
another.” He faced toward Gardestang, and
winked ever so slightly, to plead under¬
standing for Challoner. “Say, Gardestang,
something whispers that we’ll get together
more often. The Seekers Lofty Thought
And Drinking Society may be said to have
formed. What nickname might friends give
you?”
“In the army they called me Duke,” re¬
plied Gardestang, feeling very warm toward
his new companions.
“All right. And I’m Tommy, and you
may call this rum-soak Rico. Now listen,
if you’re a literary person, how about help¬
ing me in certain throes of composition?
I’ll trade you some tutoring in math or mech¬
anical drawing or psychology. We’ll go
as soon as we have a last round of drinks.”
CHAPTER II
The Tarots
D ESPITE its convivial beginning, the
so-called Seekers Society did not do
much drinking. Each of its three mem¬
bers had plenty of studying to do, and both
Gardestang and Tommy aspired to the school
boxing team. That meant a training regime
sf consideralbe strictness. Rico, whose
strange tense mood seemed not to return,
rallied them both unmercifully.
“In Chile, we learn intriguing effects with
laggers and rapiers,” he told them. “Fight-
ng with such things is neater and much more
ronclusive. A pity that the duel is not al-
owed in North America.”
“I’ve fought twenty or thirty duels in my
ime,” Gardestang told him. “With pistols,
nachine guns, bayonets, knives, and once
vith an entrenching tool. Yes, and once I
:ouldn’t kill the other bird because I hadn’t
time to draw a weapon. So I gave him
knuckles. I hit first, hit hard, and kept hit¬
ting. When he’d had enough, I brought him
in, and he turned out to be a German signal
officer. My C. O. gave me a ten-day furlough,
then and there.”
“The Germans were poor boxers, generally
speaking,” said Tommy in reminiscent tones.
“I had an opportunity to study them first
hand, too. One of them crashed his plane
near our field, and I was first to reach it.
He tried to set fire to his crate, and I kept
him from doing it, though he was as big as
you, Duke, and almost half as ugly. I re¬
member that he told the interpreter that
decadent magic had been used against him.”
“Magic,” repeated Gardestang. “I remem¬
ber that W. B. Seabrook and his friends
used to stick pins into Hitler’s image. And
let me show you something that I ran onto,
in outside reading for psychology.”
From his notebook he drew a sheet of
longhand script. “From a book by Joir£,
who investigated psychical phenomena in
France back early in the century. He ex¬
perimented in hypnotism, and with one sub¬
ject he found he could transmit a slight sen¬
sation of pain by thrusting a pin into a glass
of water held by the subject. Later he went
further, with a putty image on a plate,
touched by the subject and then removed
some distance. He’d prick the image on
leg or arm, and the subject felt pinpricks
in those parts. I wonder what he’d have
had to tell the police if he’d stabbed that
image in the heart ?”
“I’m boxing in the welters at the dual
meet with Southwestern,” grinned Tommy.
“They say that Southwestern welterweight,
Ossowski, has a mean inside right. What
say we mumble over his photograph and
stick pins in it?”
“For heaven’s sake, drop that talk!” im¬
plored Challoner, almost hysterical. “You
don’t know what you’re tampering with!”
He headed for a class, and Gardestang
and Tommy turned their steps toward the
gymnasium.
“He has some kind of worry, and it makes
him miserable,” commented Tommy soberly.
“Has he always been nervous like that?”
asked Gardestang. “How long have you
known him?”
“Oh, we both started here in the summer
session and took a shine to each other.
After it finished, I had him visit my folks
in Pennsylvania. He was charming company
and coached my sister Mary in French. My
mother says she never had a more consider-
16
STARTLING STORIES
ate guest in the house. But he was moody,
and once I was downright panicky about
him.”
“Panicky?” repeated Gardestang. “You
aren’t a panicky type.”
“This was a Sunday late in August. There
was special music at church, and Mother
wanted to go. We started out in a body—
Mother, Mary, Rico, and me. But as we
came near the church, he turned black-
moody as could be. Almost staggered as
we went up the steps. At the door he told
me he did not dare go in. I stayed away
with him, and he was genuinely sick. All
he would say was that if he went to church
he’d break a promise and be sorry.”
“He must belong to some narrow sect,”
suggested Gardestang.
“I doubt it. Rico doesn’t act like a bigot.
Well, here we are. Get into your kit and
let’s rough around for a little. You’ll be
a better heavyweight for working with a
fast light man, and I need something big
to shoot at.”
Christmas and New Year’s came and went,
and then spring came north early. Tommy
made Revere College history, running the
high hurdles. In late April, the Seekers
had new experience of those qualities of
coincidence that had previously baffled them.
Professor James Hinton, head of the
psychology department, had once been as¬
sociated with J. B. Rhine in making tests
of extra sensory perception. With the per¬
mission of the President of Revere College,
he began tests involving every student in
school.
H IS first group, of fifty young men and
women, included Challoner, Gardes¬
tang and Gatchell. They met in the college
auditorium, and Professor Hinton, president
on the rostrum, stood with blackboard, desk,
pads of papers and pencils. He began his
address with small preliminaries, facing the
group with a small pack of cards held in
one hand.
“These,” and he held up the pack, “are
specially designed tarot cards, twenty-five
in number. Five symbols are included, five
cards of each symbol.” He held up cards
in turn, for the class to see. “You perceive
these symbols—a square, a triangle, a cross,
a circle, a series of wavy lines.” He began
to shuffle the cards. “Method of operation,
as carried out by my former colleague, Pro¬
fessor Rhine, is simple. The operator—
myself—shuffles the cards well, holds them
where they cannot be seen, and asks the
observers—you ladies and gentlemen—to
name each card in turn. You may employ
guesswork, inspiration, or what you think is
an actual sense of the images. Suppose we
start with a series of ten. Since there are
five symbols, you have a likelihood of being
right twice in the ten, or one-fifth of the
time. Is it understood? Questions?”
Nobody spoke, though Rico, sitting be¬
side Tommy Gatchell, squirmed in his chair.
“I shall name two assistants—Miss Larri-
more to stand by my side and mark the
name of each symbol as I turn it up, and
Miss Went to collect the slips of paper
on which you write your guesses. Head
each slip with your name and figures from
one to ten for your guesses. Understood?
To be sure of our controls, spread out.
There are enough seats so that you can
take alternate places, with empty chairs be¬
tween you.”
The students obeyed. Gardestang caught
a glimpse of Rico’s face, pale and drawn.
"Ready?” the professor said. “Begin.
What’s the first card I turn up?”
He held it so that only Miss Larrimore,
beside him, could see. Gardestang wrote
his first impression at once. Square.
“Second card,” said Hinton. “What is it?”
Triangle, wrote Gardestang. Again Pro¬
fessor Hinton turned up a card, and again
guesses were written, so on until ten had
been turned up. “Gather the slips, Miss
Went,” said the professor. “Recess of ten
minutes.”
The students left their seats, chatting over
cigarettes and pipes. Gardestang drifted, with
Rico and Tommy, to a window recess.
“What’s the matter, Rico?" asked Tommy,
and Rico shook a mournful head.
“Perhaps I’m being idiotic. But, even if
these cards are fascinating, they’re—they’re
■—dangerous.”
Gardestang caught his elbow. “Buck up.
What’s on your mind?”
“Perhaps only the word tarot. This stuff
is set down, in classic theology, as a sin of
black magic.”
Tommy tried to laugh. “I know. I’ve
seen that in Father Summers’ book on witch¬
craft. But things aren’t evil, it’s only their
use. How about inventions like airplanes
or rifles? Or look at a chemical compound
like alcohol or iodine—a benefit or a poison,
depending on what hands use it.”
Rico spread his own hands and looked at
them. Eyes and fingers trembled. “My
own hands,” he mumbled. “Are they good?”
“Seats, please,” Professor Hinton called,
STRANGERS ON THE HEIGHTS
17
and the class returned to session. Professor
Hinton had made a fourfold column on the
blackboard:
Card
Challoner Gardestang
Gatchell
1 Circle
Circle*
Square
Cross
2 Cross
Cross*
Triangle
Triangle
3 Waves
Triangle
Waves*
Waves*
4 Cross
Waves
Square
Square
5 Waves
Waves*
Circle
Circle
6 Circle
Square
Waves
Triangle
7 Square
Square*
Circle
Circle
8 Square
Waves
Waves
9 Square
Square*
Triangle
10 Circle
Circle*
Circle*
Circle*
“I’ve set
down the
series of
cards as
turned them up,” explained the professor.
“Also three columns representing rather re¬
markable results among you observers.”
He pointed to the second column. “Mr.
Challoner had by far the highest score of
right answers. Six out of ten—three hun¬
dred percent of probability. But quite as
unusual are the next two columns, which
must be considered together.”
Again he pointed. “You see that I have
starred only two correct answers in each
column—exactly the probability number.
But, though the other answers of Mr.
Gardestang and Mr. Gatchell did not match
the true symbols, they show extraordinary
similarity. In seven cases—all but the first,
sixth, and ninth—their answers were identi¬
cal.”
T HE professor faced the class. “That
is all for this group. I’m asking the
three students whose results I have tabul¬
ated to remain.”
Alone in the room with the three Seekers,
Professor Hinton smiled less pedagogically.
“You’re three of my favorite students.
What I want to do is experiment further
with the three of you.”
“Please!” broke in Rico. “No, no!”
He hurried out. Professor Hinton looked
after him with concern.
“Forget it for now, and check up on him.”
They caught up with Rico outside on the
campus.
“Let me alone,” he said, quite gruff for
him.
Tommy slid a broad hand under Rico’s
armpit, as if making an arrest.
“It’s late in the y ar, and we’ve all got
good marks,” he said to Gardestang. “What
if we all cut a class and had some beer at
Lambs?”
Rico tried to pull away, but Gardestang
took his other hand. “A brilliant idea, Tom-
STARTLING STORIES
my,” he agreed. “Come on, Rico.”
The Chilean sighed, and capitulated. “Very
well. But not at Lamb’s. You have neither
one been at my lodgings, have you?”
“Come to think of it, never,” said Tommy.
“It’s not far. A room behind a furniture
shop. And,” his voice shook yet again, “I
know you are both my friends. I will break
a solemn promise, made long ago, and tell
you—almost everything.”
Rico’s quarters were in an inaccessible part
of town. The door opened into an alley, and
was half hidden by a little picket fence. In¬
side, the fittings were almost luxurious. He
had two room, a sort of study with sturdily-
woven serapes on the walls, several photo¬
graphs framed on a mantelpiece, two com¬
fortable leather chairs, a table, a sofa. The
smaller chamber held a cot-bed, a little elec¬
tric grill, and shelves of books in several
languages.
“Sit,” Rico bade his friends, and poured
wine out of a pottery bottle. Gardestang
found the stuff strong and tingly, and sipped
cautiously. Rico tossed off his own portion
at a gulp, and poured another.
“There are more reasons than one why I
am upset,” he began. “For one, it is neces¬
sary that I go home. Perhaps before the
end of school.”
“Home?” repeated Tommy. “Chile?”
Rico nodded. “Santiago. My sister,
Theolinda, has written. My uncle has died,
and we are his heirs. I must help to settle
the estate.” His phraseology and accent
were growing more Latin by the moment.
“It may be awkward.”
“What if I came along?” Tommy Gatchell
asked.
Rico’s eyes shone. “You mean it?”
His voice shook, and Tommy did mean
it. “It so happens that I can pick up a
few dollars and lots of vacation easily.
Friends I know have bought and converted
obsolescent bombers for civilian transport
service. I can fly one south, to Peru or
closer, with you for a passenger. From
there it’s a quick jump to Santiago or
Valparaiso.”
“If you would, Tommy! But this needn’t
be blind flying. I shall tell you both, as
I promised.”
Again he sipped. Then he spoke.
“I break an oath of silence because it was
bad. Two negatives make an affirmative,
eh? And here, at least, two wrongs make
a right. Have you a cigarette, Duke?
Thank you.
“My father, I may have said, was French,
and my mother was Chilean, of good family.
Both died young, and my sister and I were
reared by this uncle who has now died also.
Theolinda—T, I call her—went to boarding
school in New England. She is younger
than I by several years. She is my chief
hold on sanity. She and you good fellows.”
“You don’t make it sound too sad,” in¬
terposed Gardestang, seeking to cheer Rico,
but the Chilean held up a hand for silence.
“I went to military school in Santiago,
my home city. A civilian instructor—some
said he was an unfrocked priest—took an
interest in me and some other younger
cadets. He spoke and read to us. He told
things that frightened and fascinated. At
the time they seemed good. But today they
make me feel ill.”
R ICO suddenly threw out a single word.
“Devil-worship!”
“Nonsense,” began Gardestang, but this
time it was Tommy who motioned for silence.
“Few words are best,” said Rico. “I
thought it interesting, and later sophisti¬
cated. I became one of a large group in
Santiago who attended foul ceremonies.
There were many reasons for this attend¬
ance. Some wanted to win women, others
to get money, others sought excitement.
They all seemed to have what they wanted.”
He put his hand to his face. “I hate to
remember some things.”
“Skip them, then,” urged Tommy. “We
want to hear, so as to help you. If you
grew to dislike this devil-worship cult, why
didn’t you leave it?”
“Because of others who tried, and were
punished.” Rico had hold of himself now,
spoke with more steadiness and strength.
“I remember one man, a big muscular one,
who struck down the leader of the group
with his fist. Then he was frightened, and
went to his hotel, where he locked the door
and barred the windows. But the leader
only thrust a picture of the man with a
dagger. The next day the man was found
dead. Heart disease, said the doctors. But
it was murder in a locked room, the fa¬
vorite familiar mystery of detective writers.
“I said I would have no more of the cult.
The chiefs said there would be no turning
away. I spoke of going to a lawyer. The
lawyer died, by some sort of accident, before
I reached his office. I chose another, in
my mind only. He died, too. And one of
the cult told me that my thoughts had been
read, in a crystal ball or by strangely marked
cards, not like those Professor Hinton had,
STRANGERS ON THE HEIGHTS
19
which were not Tarot cards. The cult used a
devilish version of the Tarots. After that
I had to be careful even of thinking.”
He held out his hands to his friends.
“You must realize that this sort of thing
goes on full blast in Santiago, and in other
places. Sometimes one hears of it, but that
person is always dealt with. And always
it seems sickness or accident. The police
cannot be told. Even if they believed, they
would be powerless.”
“How did you get out of it, then?” Garde-
stang demanded.
“The war.” Rico shrugged his shoulders.
“I left Santiago, and in Brazil met French
sympathizers who had known my father. I
joined a unit of the Foreign Legion. I fought
through some regrettable disasters, and
later, with the Free French, through some
almost equally terrible victories. Need I
dwell on them, either?”
“You needn’t,” said Gardestang. “I fought,
part of the time, with the British. I take
it you came from the war to school.”
“Yes. I negotiated the exchange scholar¬
ship without returning to Santiago. But
now—I must return. And there is more
than that.”
Once again Rico fell silent, and would
not speak without prompting.
“The cult again?” Tommy suggested, and
Rico nodded. He rose, crossed to the win¬
dow and stared out.
“One of them came as a messenger. He
is here in town now. They know that I
have inherited money. Up to the present
they were content for me to be gone as long
as I kept silent. But now I am reminded
that I still belong to them. I and my pos¬
sessions. They want the money I get from
my uncle’s estate.”
Tommy made a harsh noise in his throat.
“And the messenger is still here? Where?”
“In a boarding house down by the river,
operated by a Mrs. Dymock.”
Gardestang also got up. “I move that we
go down there and interview him. All three
of us. I don’t care whether he can read
my mind or not, all the way here. As to
killing me or anyone else at a distance, it
can’t work every time. Not in my books,
it can’t.”
“But it can!” protested Rico. “I have
told you only the lesser half of my secret.
The cult drew its power from spirits—I do
not know what else to call them. Old gods
of the Mountains, perhaps, who taught and
helped them, and were given service—”
He broke off again. His two friends,
staring, saw Rico Challoner paw at his
breast, gasp as if for air, then drop slowly
to a knee. He slumped down on his face.
Gardestang turned him over. There was
no mark anywhere. But Rico was dead!
CHAPTER III
The Messenger and the Monster
NTIL the medical examiner arrived at
the scene of Rico’s death, the small¬
town police were harsh and threatening to
Gatchell and Gardestang.
“Heart disease,” the examiner diagnosed
quickly. “You two young men were wise
to call police at once. I’m removing this
body to the county morgue for an autopsy,
but there’s no reason to hold you at present.”
His assistants took Rico’s body away.
Tommy and Gardestang plodded off to¬
gether. Without consultation they took a
right turning, then a left, away from the
campus and toward the river section.
“Professor Hinton was right,” said Tom¬
my after a while. “We can think of the
same things.”
“If you mean someone staying in a board¬
ing house by the river, operated by a Mrs.
Dymock, I’m with you.”
“Go to the head of the class, Duke. And
what else is in the back of my mind?”
“Something Rico said about the police.
That ‘they can’t be told. Even if they be¬
lieved, they would be powerless.’ ”
“On the nose again. Duke, Rico was my
friend. He was clean strain, in spite of this
miserable business he got mixed into as an
innocent kid. If he died because of some
rotten hokus-pokus, I’m not going to try
too hard to understand it.”
“Nor I,” nodded Gardestang. “But I’ll
try my darndest to make someone else die.”
They passed through the business district,
into dingy streets of small, shabby homes.
A goat waggled its whiskers from a yard.
They crossed a railroad track, and beyond
saw the creeping brown current of the river.
A man in blue jeans came up from a little
wharf.
“Mister,” Tommy hailed him, “do you
know a Mrs. Dymock, who keeps a board¬
ing house?”
The man nodded, and pointed. “Down
yonder on Exchange Street. Back of the
house to the water. Third from the corner
of Lewis Street.”
20
STARTLING STORIES
“Thanks.” The two walked on, purpose¬
fully and glum.
“Got any plans, Tommy?” asked Garde-
stang.
“A couple. How about you?”
“It just occurs that we could hardly be
tried for homicide if no body was left for
those eager cops to enthuse over. And just
behind the boarding house will be a river
to carry away evidence.”
“Three times you’ve thought double har¬
ness with me. I wonder if anyone else is
tuning in.”
Gardestang shook his head. “Suppose we
allow—and we do allow—that Rico was killed
by remote control. That’s because he had
a mind that could be looked into from far
off, by some means or other known to the
cult. He admitted that, remember. And
don’t forget that he seemed to pick the card
symbols accurately. But you and I — we
aren’t beamed to anyone except each other.
A closed line, so to speak.”
“Comforting, if true. I don’t mind you
reading most of my thoughts, Duke, because
you won’t stick pins in my picture or any¬
thing. Look! That big green box of a
house must be Dymock’s.”
It was. The landlady was out, but a
grimy-faced maid told them readily that a
stranger was boarding there.
“A foreigner,” she amplified. “Spanish or
Indian or something. You know him?”
“Very well,” said Tommy. “We’re black¬
smiths, come to fix his wagon.” They
brushed past her and started up the stairs
to which she pointed.
On the second floor was a long, narrow
hall, with windows on one side, doors on
the other. The first of these, well ajar, re¬
vealed a bathroom. Tommy knocked at the
second. A blondined female head poked out.
“Sorry,” said Tommy. “We’re from the
immigration authorities, looking for a for¬
eigner.”
“Yes, that Indian,” said the blondined
woman. “He’s in the last room, clear at the
back.”
“Thanks,” said Tommy, and they walked
down the hall.
“Door will be locked,” whispered Garde¬
stang as they came to it. He motioned
Tommy out of the way, turned his back
to the door and drew one knee upward.
Backward he drove his heel, like a kicking
horse, hard against the lock just beneath
the knob.
Torn from its slot, the lock sprang, and
the door flew inward. Tommy moved in
quickly, hands loosely clenched close to his
side. Turning back quickly, Gardestang fol¬
lowed close behind.
The room was square, with windows show¬
ing the river beyond. There was a bed,
with a dresser beyond, a table, one chair.
On the dingy carpet knelt a plump, swarthy
man, packing a big label-matted suitcase.
He rose and faced them blankly.
G ARDESTANG shoved the broken door
shut behind him. “We’re from Rico
Challoner,” he said.
The plump man looked more blank still,
then a little ripple of panic crossed his
round face. Gardestang noted this, and felt
triumphantly sure of his prey.
“Oh, yes, Rico is dead,” Gardestang con¬
tinued. “My, but strange things happen,
don’t they, in the circles where you move?
So a dead man sends trusted friends to
finish his business affairs.”
The plump man made a dash for the door.
Tommy put out a quick hand, catching and
squeezing a pudding shoulder.
“Not so fast,” he said. “Unfinished busi¬
ness, for Rico Challoner. You speak Eng¬
lish, don’t you? Hablo usted Ingles?”
“No, no,” quavered the plump one. “Por
Dios, senores!”
“He lies,” pronounced Gardestang. “He
understands everything we say. Isn’t that
so, Fatty? If you don’t start talking, we’ll
converse by signs.” He doubled a fist, half
cocked it.
Submissively the man sat down on the
bed.
“I suggest,” he mumbled, “that Rico Chal¬
loner—my friend, too—has died by natural
causes of the heart.”
“That’s a confession right there,” broke
in Tommy. “What do you know about his
heart disease? We just came from there,
after talking to the police.”
“Police!” The plump one seemed to
clutch at the word. “Si, yes. Take me to
the police. I am ready.”
Again he got up. Gardestang gave him
the heel of a hand in the chest, setting him
abruptly down again. “We take you no¬
where. We will talk to you. Consider us
as police of a sort, arresting you. You will
then be tried, by us.”
“And undoubtedly executed.” That was
Tommy, over by the bureau. “Look here,
Duke.”
He had picked up a sheet of white paper,
no whiter than his own face had become.
He held it out.
STRANGERS ON THE HEIGHTS
21
The plump man gave vent to a sort of
whimpering cry, and jumped up, snatching
at it. Tommy fended him off with his free
hand, and the plump man drew from under
his coat a long, straight knife, with a blade
as narrow as a screw-driver. Gardestang
made a heavy but swift leap, caught the man
by collar and knife wrist, and threw him
roughly to the floor over his lifted leg. A
moment later Gardestang had stamped on
the hand that held the knife. When the
fingers opened, he kicked the knife into a
corner. His victim struggled up, and Garde¬
stang uppercut him savagely. Down fell
the plump body in a quivering, moaning
heap.
“Look here,” said Tommy again. He held
out the paper.
It was a sketch of Rico, an excellent like¬
ness, in red and black ink. Gardestang, gaz¬
ing, judged that it had been traced from a
photograph and then elaborated. Rico was
depicted at full length, standing jauntily with
a hand on some sort of pedestal or bracket.
His face smiled faintly, his eyes looked
straight out of the picture. A narrow gash-
like hole pierced the paper, at the chest.
Tommy stooped and retrieved the knife.
He held it close to the sheet.
“Stabbed with a knife,” he announced.
“Remember what Rico said about the man
who socked a leader of the cult? "fhey
stabbed a picture, and the man died of heart
disease.”
Gardestang looked at a row of strange
characters at the top of the sheet, letters
of some language he did not know. He
folded the picture and stowed it in his
pocket. Then he stirred the fallen man with
his toe.
“Get up,” he commanded. “Up, or I’ll
pull you around by the hair. Now, what
about all this?”
The plump man backed against the wall.
“I know nothing,” he said quaveringly.
“Kill me.”
“What’s your name?”
“I do not answer,” said the man again.
“Here’s his name on the suitcase tag,”
contributed Tommy. “Francisco Fereo.
You’re in a bad spot, Francisco.”
Francisco Fereo licked his fat lips. “I
suggest,” he said, “that you are yourselves
in—how to say?—a bad spot. Others will
be coming as I call them.”
“Others?” echoed Gardestang. “More
than one of you, are there ? Come on, Tom¬
my, let’s all three go for a walk.”
Tommy had been pocketing other papers
from Francisco Fereo’s suitcase.
“Come on, then,” he agreed.
The three walked out silently. The maid
stared, but said nothing, nor did Francisco
Fereo speak for the moment. As they
strolled, three abreast, toward a vacant slope
of river bank, he actually smiled.
“You cannot hide me from my friends,”
he said. “They will follow. They know
the mind.”
“Our minds give away no secrets,” Tommy
told him. “If they had, you would be pre¬
pared for our coming.”
“I speak not of your minds. My mind
calls. Now.”
T OMMY led the way to a clump of
brushy willows, near the water’s edge.
There he spoke coldly to Francisco Fereo.
“We know a lot of what has happened
here, and what has happened in Santiago.
Rico died before he could explain every¬
thing. We want a full story from you.”
Fereo shook his head silently.
“Speak,” said Gardestang, and struck the
silent face with his fist.
“Kill me,” bade Fereo.
“No, but we’ll half kill you,” promised
[Turn page]
22
STARTLING STORIES
Tommy, and threw his own fist. Fereo stag¬
gered and put a hand to his face. Blood
showed.
“You are putting yourselves into danger,”
he assured them. “I will be avenged.”
“Don’t worry about us,” Gardstang inter¬
rupted. “You murdered our friend. You
think that some unknown strength or
knowledge is going to protect you. Will it
protect you from this?”
Again he struck. Fereo moaned.
“This much I shall say,” he mumbled
through his bruised lips. “I warn you of the
Viejos Dios—the Old Gods—”
That was as far as he got. His hands
pawed at the front of his shirt. He began
to collapse. Tommy caught him and eased
him to the ground.
“Dead,” Tommy told Gardestang. “And
did you notice his words?”
“I did. He mentioned Old Gods. Just
like Rico—before Rico died.”
Tommy looked toward the water. “Get
him into that. I don’t want to be cluttered
up in any more heart-failure cases. Grab
hold of the other side. Duke, I’m still tak¬
ing that job flying the plane to Peru.”
“And then on to Chile?”
Tommy nodded. “Something tells me
we’re into something. And I hate to dodge
it by backing out.”
“You offered to take Rico as a passenger,”
reminded Gardestang. “How about me go¬
ing with you? We’ll both dig into whatever
it is that kills before you can talk out of
turn.”
“I was just waiting for you to suggest it,”
said Tommy. “Come on. Into the river
with this specimen.”
CHAPTER IV
War on Shadows
A BIG passenger plane was disgorging
its load of people and luggage at the
airport of Los Cerrillos. Buses and taxis
waited to haul passengers to their destina¬
tions in Santiago. Two young men, last to
leave the plane, turned from a uniformed
driver who reached for their bags.
“We want refreshments,” said Gardestang.
“We will leave in a few moments. Poco
tiempo. Sabe?”
“Perfectly, sir,” replied the driver. “Shall
I put the bags in my cab? You can buy
sandwiches and drinks at the counter in the
administration building.”
But Tommy Gatchell and Gardestang
moved, instead, to a small shacklike refresh¬
ment stand, less crowded and presided over
by the most bored of men. They ordered
something at random from the Spanish
menu, and it turned out to be good sea
food. With it went American beer.
“Wasn’t Rico’s sister to meet us?” asked
Tommy between mouthfuls. “Theolinda,
isn’t that her name?”
Gardestang frowned. “I cabled that we
would come, but that we would call on her
at her home. I wanted her to take no
chances of walking into trouble before we
showed up. We’re being watched closely,
you know.”
“I do know,” agreed Tommy. “You’re
a smart guy, Duke. But all during the trip
you’ve been digging into books and making
notes. What about ?”
Gardestang brought out a wad of scrib¬
bled paper. “We start with Charles Fort,
our original inspiration. I brought along
two of his works, ‘Lol’ and ‘Wild Talents.’
Listen here—this is from ‘Lo!’, page one
seventy-two. ‘There may be occult things,
beings and events, and also there may be
something of the nature of an occult police
force, which operates to divert human sus¬
picions.’ He backs that up with all sorts of
strange things, whose plausible explanations
he attempts to make ridiculous. Again, he
writes about appearances and disappear¬
ances, very mysterious, which he explains
by ‘teleportation’—supernormal moving of
matter from one point in space to another.”
“All of this by far-fetched, ill-supported
examples from country papers,” pointed out
Tommy Gatchell.
“Not all. In ‘Wild Talents’ he wrote of
funny things that had happened to him. It
was his last book.”
Gatchell sipped beer. “Do you suppose
that this particular occult traffic—that can
be used to read men’s minds and kill them—
breaks down resistance at the end? I re¬
member Professor Hinton saying, in a lec¬
ture, that the extra-sensory perception crowd
thinks all people can cultivate and strengthen
their power to read thoughts and symbols
•at a distance.”
“If you’re right, at least we’re pretty new
and resistant so far,” reminded Gardestang.
“Let’s keep it that way. We’re on each
other’s thought-beam, and that’s all. If
we’re going to have trouble with anyone,
they’ll have to kill us with honest guns and
knives.”
STRANGERS ON THE HEIGHTS
23
“Es verdad, senor.”
Gardestang spun quickly. The cab driver
was in the doorway.
“What’s true?” demanded Gardestang.
“What are you driving at?”
“I said, it is ready. The cab, your bag¬
gage stowed. Where do you wish to go?”
Gardestang glanced at Tommy.
“Take us to the Avenida de la Delicias—
the main drag,” directed Tommy. “I have
a due bill on the Hotel Braganza.”
The ride to Santiago was refreshing and
zestful. Though the ride by air liner had
shown more grandeur of distant mountain
scenery, the two young men saw plenty of
beauty close at hand. Santiago had lovely
plazas, a grand cathedral, and many modern-
built buildings. The Avenid de las Delicias
was a huge thoroughfare, with a parklike
promenade in its center. Almost every
crossing disclosed a monument or statue.
Gardestang drank in the color of Chile’s
capital city with all a tourist’s fervor, but
suddenly sat bolt upright.
“Why’s he turning off?” he demanded.
“To get to the hotel,” suggested Gatchell.
“But I spotted the sign—Braganza—two
blocks away from here. Hi, driver! You’re
going the wrong way.”
“I am going the right way,” said the driver
over his shoulder.
As is frequently the case, unsavory side
streets came close to the main business dis¬
trict in Santiago. The cab was already
traversing one of these. Even as Garde¬
stang leaned forward to expostulate, it
turned into a narrower way still, an alley
between the blank rear walls of old brick
and stucco buildings. The driver put on
the brakes, and turned with a mousy grin.
“We have waited long for you to come,”
he said.
G ARDESTANG put out a hand to seize
the driver’s arm, but found himself
looking into a pistol muzzle. The door of
the car was yanked open. “Get out,” said
a voice in English.
The two Americans got out. Three men
besides the driver were standing in the alley.
Two of them ranged themselves behind the
third, each with his hand inside his coat,
as if upon a weapon. The third, as big as
Gardestang but softer, made a little gesture
of mocking welcome.
“This is like a family reunion,” he said.
“Americans of my age, coming all the way
down here in pursuit of strange knowledge!
I did the same thing years ago. It served
the additional purpose of avoiding the draft.
I learned so much of interest that I’m deso¬
lated to say you won’t learn anything.”
“Who are you?” asked Tommy Gatchell
in a gentle, unpleasant voice.
“Oh, pardon me. My name is Eaker, Val
Eaker. And I’m perhaps the greatest poten¬
tial thorn in your flesh. Yet, to avoid mess,
I give you a chance to withdraw from what
you came to seek. I give you more—your
fare back to America.”
“Which means we’re on the right track,
and you’re afraid.” Gardestang shuffled
about an inch closer to the man who called
himself Eaker. Gardestang’s shoulders were
hunched, his arms a little bent at the elbows.
Eaker saw all these things, and moved back.
His two companions came up, one on each
side of him.
“If there is any violence, be assured that
we will be the ones to perform it,” Eaker
warned the Americans. “Aren’t you satis¬
fied? You killed my friend who was in¬
volved in the tragic death of Rico Challoner.
Poor Fereo! So untimely was his end.”
“We killed nobody. He dropped dead
while telling us something.”
“Which you were forcing him to tell. I
consider your guilt well demonstrated.
What do you say, gentlemen? Have I your
promises that you’ll go back to the States?
Or must my companions require you to step
through this back doorway, into a most
interesting room that has no windows and
very little light?”
“You’d accept our promises?” said Tom¬
my, and Eaker bowed.
“Implicitly. Because I’d swear you with
oaths you dare not break. And, anyway,
you could do little harm with what knowl¬
edge you now have. Come, shall I give you
ten seconds to consent?”
He held out a hand, rather delicate for
one so fleshy.
Gardestang caught him by the wrist and
whipped him close with a single effort of
the muscles. Eaker gasped, struggled
briefly, then subsided as Gardestang swung
him around and jammed something hard
into his back.
“Put those weapons away!” Gardestang
snarled at the other two, from under whose
coats had come pistols. “If either of you
makes a false move, I’ll shoot this man loose
from his spinal column!”
The two may or may not have understood
English. Eaker was swiftly and hysterically
supplementing Gardestang’s words with a
Spanish translation. The two men dropped
24
STARTLING STORIES
the weapons back into their pockets, and
moved back as if impelled by one thought.
Gardestang had his first good glimpse of
them. They were scrubby but dangerous-
looking, and none too bright of expression.
“Tell them to leave you here,” ordered
Gardestang.
“Leave me—alone?” faltered Eaker.
“Oh, I’ll let you go later. Order them
away, and the driver, too.”
Eaker spoke rapidly to his companions.
They moved to a dull-painted doorway and
inside. The driver followed.
“Get at the wheel, Tommy,” said Garde¬
stang. “Eaker, back into the rear seat with
me. Tommy, drive us out into the open.”
In silence the car brought them out upon
a street, then to a fairly busy corner.
“Quick, Tommy!” said Gardestang. “Get
out and flag that taxi. So. Now, Eaker,
help transfer our bags. That’s a sensible
fellow. And now, goodby. Better make the
goodby permanent.”
Eaker watched them getting in. “I have
erred, and shall suffer,” he pronounced dul-
cetly. “Next time I shall know better how
to deal with you.”
G RIMLY Gardestang paused with a foot
on the running board of the taxi.
“Take a good look at me, Eaker,” he
challenged. “I’m a sort of a jinx. Better
remember that in the future and pass me
up. I’ll bring you nothing but hard luck.”
“Later you’ll wish you were dead,” prom¬
ised Eaker.
He got into another taxicab and was
driven away. Gardestang and Tommy gave
the name, Hotel Braganza, to their new
driver, and rolled off toward the Avenida
de las Delicias.
“Duke, it was a good thing you had that
gun, or we’d be in a jam now, said Tommy
softly. “But you’d better get rid of it. How
did you sneak it through the customs?”
“I didn’t have a gun. I dug this into his
back.”
Gardestang showed a stubby - stemmed
pipe.
“You see, they can’t read our minds yet,”
said Gardestang. “Which means, they can’t
kill us by magic, or thought transference,
or mental suggestion, or whatever their
method is. The war’s begun — war on
shadows — and I wonder if the shadows
aren’t going to get hurt in a most unshadowy
manner.”
At the Hotel Braganza their room was
ready. There was also a message and a
telephone number to call, left by Senorita
Theolinda Challoner.
Santiago de Chile has always been a gay
and free capital. The women of all classes
enjoy more freedom and education than in
almost any other Latin American country.
The North American influence is felt
throughout a lively world of entertainment,
and the theaters and cafes are elaborate and
pleasant. The salon of the Hotel Braganza
is not one of the richest, but it is one of
the liveliest.
On that particular night when Tommy
and Gardestang sat at table with Theolinda
Challoner, an orchestra with green coats
played wildly and then mournfully, the
hybrid rhythms of deep South American
dance music. Someone sang, first in Span¬
ish and then in English, for there was a
fair sprinkling of tourists from the United
States. The food, brought by a slender
waiter in broidered jacket, was French-
cooked, and skillfully prepared.
Theolinda Challoner gazed at her two
hosts with deep blue eyes that had neverthe¬
less that liquid expressiveness found gen¬
erally in eyes of darkest color. Her face
had a rosy flush, and her unswept brown
hair gleamed lustrously. She was tall for
a Chilean girl, and proportioned in a way
that bespoke vigor but not heaviness. Where
Rico had been all dark Spanish, Theolinda
had the complexion and figure of a Northern
race, though her delicately rounded chin,
curved lips, and lovely eyes were Latin
enough. Gardestang remembered that her
father had been a Frenchman, perhaps a
Norman or Picard.
“You have come all the way here for the
sake of my brother, your friend,” she was
saying as she toyed with a slim-shafted wine
glass. “You think that the reason for his
death can be found here. Yet I can add
so little to what is known.”
“Perhaps we need only a little,” Tommy
told her gently, and she gave him a brief
smile as of gratitude.
“Rico was older than I by three years.
It is a proper difference in age between
brother and sister who are going to be good
comrades. He was always thoughtful and
studious. He was not like me. I would
rather ride or climb or dance than sink
myself too deeply in books, while he was
forever reading histories and accounts of
warfare. Thinking he had a bent for an
army career, my father sent him to military
school. I knew that he was troubled by
being there, though he did not tell me about
STRANGERS ON THE HEIGHTS
25
it. Until you spoke tonight I did not know
what influences worked on him there.”
“He never mentioned diabolism?” Garde-
stang prompted her.
She shook her taffy head. “No. That is,
not exactly. Once we spoke of prayer, and
he said suddenly and earnestly, ‘Prayers are
evil when they are made selfishly. Pray
only to be made good and brave and honest.
No worship is worthy if it is followed only
for earthly profit.’ Again, he read many
strange books, both in Spanish and English,
on subjects banned by the Church. One
such he received by mail. It was called ‘The
Mysteries and Secrets of Magic,’ by C. J.
Thompson.”
“I’ve seen that book among Rico’s things,”
said Tommy Gatchel. “I was interested
enough to read it myself. It was published
in England, by the Bodley Head.”
T HEOLINDA nodded. “Rico was happy
when he obtained it,” she explained.
“He’d been all drawn and weary-seeming
before, but now he acted as if on the verge
of triumph. He took the book to his room,
and he was gone for hours. But he came
out, again depressed and sad. I asked if
he were ill, but he only said that he had
tried something and it had failed. Later I
went to his room, and on the table I found
a basin of water, with wet clay spread be¬
side it, marked with strange characters. And
the Thompson book was open beside it.”
“Do you remember what it told about?”
asked Gardestang quickly.
“Very well. I read it, and copied part
of it. There seemed to be some sort of
spell or curse having to do with evil spirits
and powers. I wondered if Rico had tried
magic, or counter-magic of some sort. But
I did not bring myself to ask him, and then
he left suddenly. For the war.”
“Spell or curse?” repeated Gardestang.
“It was actually that?”
“I copied it down at the time. Knowing
you would ask abotit such things, I brought
along the paper.”
From her bag she produced a worn, folded
sheet, and spread it on the table. She began
to read, slowly and tremulously:
“ ‘O thou cursed and foul witch, and thou
spirit of witchcraft and sorcery, assistant to
this hellish and diabolical creature which
doth hale, pull, terrify and torment the body
or carcase of—’ ”
“That’s enough,” said Tommy Gatchell
suddenly. He put a hand toward the shal¬
low vase of flowers in the center of the table.
They watched, while his hands carefully
parted the thick cluster of white and red
flowers there. Among them nested some¬
thing round and metallic.
“Dictaphone,” said Tommy.
“It doesn’t work,” protested Gardestang,
lifting it out to show that there were no
wires attached. Then he turned it over in
his big hands, frowning. “But maybe it
does. Look, it has special attachments.
Maybe there’s some kind of remote control.
When did we reserve this table, Tommy?
And who is now listening in on us?”
Tommy turned around. His eyes, angry
and hard, took on a strange baleful light
of recognition. Gardestang, too, looked and
saw the pudgy form and doughy face of
Eaker three tables away.
Eaker’s head almost ducked. Plainly he
had been watching them intently. With him
were three other men, and two of these
ignored Tommy and Gardestang ostenta¬
tiously. The third man, in the uniform of
an officer of the Chilean army, did not drop
his gaze. He was gaunt, tough-bodied, with
a shallow jaw and high, raw cheekbones.
One slender hand caressed a waxed mu¬
stache.
“The army man’s talking out of the side
of his mouth,” Tommy said in an undertone.
“Look at Eaker drinking it in, and pretend¬
ing not to hear.”
The orchestra suddenly blared into swift-
timed, gay dance music. And the officer
got up and walked toward them.
Gardestang got up, too, and Tommy. Both
of their bodies were instinctively tense,
ready. But the man spoke to neither of
them. He bowed almost fulsomely toward
Theolinda Challoner.
“Is it permitted that I ask the gracious
senorita for the favor of a dance?” he purred
in Spanish.
She ignored him. Gardestang replied for
her.
“It is not permitted, senor.”
The fellow faced toward him. His eyes
were fighter’s eyes, like those of Tommy
Gatchell, but not clear or steady.
“The senorita has a duenna, I see.”
“Hold it, Duke,” put in Tommy quickly.
“My Spanish is better than yours.” He
turned to the officer.
“I don’t think you know the senorita,”
Tommy said. “She would not know a bogus
officer. When next you impersonate a mili¬
tary man, see that your insignia of rank and
branch are on your tunic, right side up.”
The man turned on Tommy. They were
26
STARTLING STORIES
much the same height, and both were drawn
taut for action. The gay mustache quiv¬
ered a little.
“The Yanqui must mean to insult me,”
said the officer with trembling lips.
“I am desolated, if you have the slighted
doubt about that in your mind,” answered
Tommy. Then he hit the Chilean.
Tommy’s fists landed six or eight times,
so fast that not even Gardestang’s eye,
trained for boxing, could follow. In the
midst of that fusillade of knuckles, the man
went down heavily to hands and knees.
There were cries of alarm and protest from
all over the room, the music played louder,
and Eaker and the others were pushing
forward. Gardestang moved to set himself
in their way.
“Stay out of it, or I’ll give you all a belt
apiece,” he warned.
T HE head waiter and the manager were
both on the scene, quieting guests. In
the middle of this. Tommy Gatchell helped
Theolinda into her wrap. Gardestang and
he took their places on either side of her,
and the three walked out. In the vestibule
the man Tommy had struck caught up with
them. From one nostril blood trickled.
“This is not the United States, where any
low brawl is permitted,” he snarled furi¬
ously. “The Yanqui knows criminal tricks
with the fist, yes. In Chile we fight like
gentlemen. The duel is still practised. If
you,” and he thrust his battered face at
Tommy, “are not afraid, I shall see you
later. You are challenged.”
“I am acting for Captain Montero,” added
Eaker, coming up behind.
Tommy spoke to neither of them, but
to Gardestang. “Take charge, Duke. I'll
fight this faking hyena, just as if he were
a gentleman. You’ve probably never been
a second in a duel, but you ought to pick
it up quickly.”
“If I can help.”
The words were soft, good-humored, and
in English. They were spoken by a slender
middle-aged man, white-haired and smiling.
He was supple and elegant to the seeming,
all but his left arm, which was woodenly
stiff and terminating in a gloved hand—arti¬
ficial. Despite the Chilean tailoring of his
garments, he was no Chilean.
“I’m Dr. Parr, ex-lieutenant, United States
Navy,” he introduced himself. “You’re
Americans, and perhaps I can be of service,
even represent this youngster.”
“No, thanks,” said Gardestang at once.
He was in no mood to trust strangers. “I’ll
act for my friend.”
“As you say,” nodded Dr. Parr, and with¬
drew, all smiles.
Gardestang looked into Eaker’s wide,
mocking eyes.
“You know that we’re here at this hotel.
Look me up tomorrow morning.”
“Good. Nine o’clock, shall we say? You
and I can have coffee, and then we can
talk, yes?”
“I wouldn’t drink coffee with you, Eaker.
But I’ll talk fight with you, and if you’d
like to make it a double duel, I’ll arrange
that, too.”
Outside they went. Theolinda Challoner’s
car came around, with a heavy-set, solemn
driver who appeared to be an Indian.
“Worried, Tommy?” asked Gardestang,
and Tommy laughed with honest joy.
“Why should I worry? We’ve got them
in a corner. They can’t kill us with magic
or super-science or whatever’s their long
suit. They have to fall back on regular
weapons. And that, Duke, my son, is where
people like us shine like morning stars.”
CHAPTER V
Field of Honor
O N THE way to Theolinda’s home on
the edge of Santiago, where she was
living with two spinster friends of her dead
mother, both Tommy and Gardestang did
their best to make the coming passage of
arms seem like a gay sporting event. But
at her door, she drew Gardestang aside.
“Duke—they call you that, yes?—Duke,
your friend is in danger. From what you
tell me, these unsavory people who now
challenge you were involved in Rico’s
death.”
“We’ll be involved in their deaths,” Garde¬
stang told her heavily. “And there’ll be
no more trouble.”
“But things are not as simple as that.
Duelling laws are winked at, but death
brings about investigations. Even if you
triumph, you may have trouble. I am send¬
ing my car back with you, and also my
driver. Please let me do this. He is an
Indian—one of the old Araucanian stock,
a tribe which has held the Andean heights
and was never conquered. Lautoro!”
The driver came out of his seat and stood
before her, a solemn, squat figure of such
STRANGERS ON THE HEIGHTS
27
deep chest and broad shoulder that he looked
like a giant hammered down. His face was
as brown as an old saddle, wide and flat
and set with beady black eyes.
“Lautoro, these senores are my friends
and protectors. Tomorrow they will fight
certain other senores. Go with them, be
ready to help in case things are not fair.
You understand?”
“Si,” muttered the Indian deeply. He
turned to Gardestang and Gatchell, study¬
ing each of them with stern care. Then he
returned to his seat.
“I feel better. Lautoro was faithful to
my mother, to Rico, and now to me. Also,
he is brave and wise, though not talkative.
Go with God, my friend.”
At the Hotel Braganza, they found quar¬
ters for Lautoro, who thanked them as
gravely as an ambassador. Then they went
to their own room, where Tommy slept
soundly and serenely, while Gardestang
pondered the morrow’s possibilities. In the
morning a telephone message from the desk
told Gardestang that Eaker waited in the
lounge below.
Gardestang met his enemy, who was all
smiles and irony.
“My friend, Captain Montero, feels that
he already has waited too long for the busi¬
ness in hand. I suggest that we meet in
a quiet little picnic park south of the city,
a place called Roca Negra— Black Rock.
Sinister, eh? Swords, of course.”
Gardestank shook his head. “I don’t
think so, Eaker. Pistols.”
“You forget that it was your friend who
provoked the encounter by knocking the
captain down. We have choice of weapons.”
“I remember quite well,” rejoined Garde¬
stang. “Also I remember reading that the
challenged party can choose weapons. Pis¬
tols, I said.”
Eaker spread his hands in acceptance. “I
can lay my hands on a fine pair of duelling
pistols.”
“No, thanks. No ringer guns in this.
Let’s go buy a pair.”
They walked along the street to a big
store with a firearms department. After
some discussion and a slight disagreement
they took two American-made pistols, of
derringer model, each with two barrels, one
above the other. The weapons would fire
.41 cartridges and had hair triggers.
“I shall take charge of them,” said Eaker,
but again Gardestang shook his head.
“No, Eaker. I wouldn’t trust you. But
I’ll take them, because you can trust me.”
“I think I can,” smiled Eaker. “Then at
five o’clock tomorrow morning, at the park
of el Roca Negra. Goodby, Mr. Gardestang.”
He smiled once more, nastily, as they
parted.
Theolinda Challoner telephoned that
morning. Gardestang returned while Tom¬
my Gatchell lay in bed with a breakfast tray
and the phone, chatting cheerfully. He
passed the instrument across to his friend.
“To you the lady, Duke,” he said. “To
me, provisions.” And he buried his nose
in a coffee cup.
“Duke!” came the voice of Theolinda.
“Is everything all right?”
“It will be, I promise you,” said Garde¬
stang grimly. “And you?”
“The house was ransacked last night. The
prowler came into my very room. I must
have been drugged, or he must have been
very quiet. The spell I had copied was
missing from my handbag.”
Gardestang’s expression did not change at
this news.
••■■JE CAN regain it from Rico’s
ww book, which is being shipped
here,” he reminded her. “If they took a thing
like that, it's significant. They have magic, or
something that comes under that heading.
Well, we can use counter-magic.”
She thanked him for his comfort, and the
conversation ended. Tommy eyed him quiz¬
zically from the bed.
“Romance or something, Duke?”
“She’s a grand aristocratic specimen,”
said Gardestang soberly.
“Well, don’t moon over her. Tell me
about the scrap, where and how.”
“Pistols, at a quiet little nook called El
Parque del Roca Negra.” Gardestang pro¬
duced the weapons. “Don’t touch, Tommy.
I wouldn’t trust Eaker with them, and he
thinks I’m a fool because he can trust me.
I’m willing to keep it that way.”
“Short-barreled,” commented Tommy, eye¬
ing the guns. “I wonder if they’ll carry the
full duelling distance.”
At Tommy’s insistence, they did a bit of
sight-seeing that day. Once, among the
rich statuary in the waterside court of the
Palace of Fine Arts, Gardestang thought that
he saw a stranger eyeing them intently—
and perhaps not a stranger, after all, but
one of Eaker’s unsavory companions. Plainly
they were being observed constantly. Din¬
ner at the Braganza was pleasant and care¬
free. The only concession to the duel was
that, by mutual consent, they drank no wine
28
STARTLING STORIES
or spirits. Afterward, they went up to their
rooms.
At the door squatted a figure, broad and
silent as a brass idol—Lautoro.
“What is it?” demanded Gardestang.
For answer, the Indian held up something
flat white and festooned with red—a bone,
carved and beribboned.
“It was laid at your threshold,” said Lau¬
toro deeply. “A charm of evil. Had one
of you trod upon it, the magic would have
been fatal. There will be no danger tonight.
I shall sleep inside, across the doorway.”
“You don’t need to,” Gardestang assured
him.
“The senorita bade me to take care of
you, to see fair play. I shall do so.”
“Good,” approved Tommy, and the heavy
hulk of the Araucanian lay on a quilt before
the door all night. He had a sense of time,
and woke the two Americans at four o’clock.
The drive was quiet, even pleasant. They
found the park of the Black Rock to be a
withdrawn, gloomy spot with streams and
a great boulder of basalt. Captain Mon-
tera and Eaker were already awaiting them,
with a third person who stood half-con¬
cealed among shrubbery.
“Good morning,” said Eaker as if welcom¬
ing them to breakfast. “Here betimes, eh?
All the sooner to be through with the busi¬
ness. Permit me to introduce the surgeon
I’ve brought in case of—well, emergency.”
He beckoned to the man in the bushes. “An
American like yourselves and me. Dr. Parr.”
The slender, white-haired man with the
artificial arm was coming forward, bowing
and smiling. Gardestang glared.
“You in this, too?” he challenged.
“Honored to be,” the doctor assured him,
unabashed. “As you know, I was on the
scene the night before last. After you left,
I offered my services to Mr. Eaker.”
“Step aside with me,” commanded Gardes¬
tang. They walked apart from Tommy and
Eaker. “I don’t know your game, sir, but
I’ll be plain. If you’re on the side of these
swine, and try anything unorthodox, I’ll
certainly kill you.”
“Why shouldn’t you?” smiled Dr. Parr,
and strolled back to Eaker.
Twenty paces were quickly measure on a
grassy level. The pistols were produced,
loaded, and Captain Montero given first
choice. In a moment the two opponents
faced each other. Montero wore a long
black coat that buttoned to the throat,
Tommy wore a tweed jacket and light
sweater vest. Eaker stood at a point mid¬
way between them and well back from the
line of fire. His left hand he thrust into
a jacket pocket, his right lifted a handker¬
chief.
“Attention, gentlemen,” he said clearly. “I
shall count one, two, three, and drop this
handkerchief. You shall each fire a shot,
and when both have fired, honor is consid¬
ered satisfied. Question? No? Then make
ready.”
Gardestang, standing opposite, saw Dr.
Parr step close to Eaker’s side. The doctor’s
sound right arm slid through Eaker’s left, in
a gesture that was friendly, almost affec¬
tionate. Gardestang stared, gritted his teeth.
“One,” counted Eaker. “Two. Three!”
T HE handkerchief fell. Captain Mon¬
tero fired at once. Gardestang had shift¬
ed his eyes to Tommy, and thought he saw a
lock of his friend’s hair stir with the wind,
of the passing bullet. Tommy smiled ever
so slightly, lifted his own pistol, and fired
in turn. Montero cursed in agony and
dropped the still smoking weapon. His
wringing hand was scarlet with blood.
At once Dr. Parr disengaged his arm
from Eaker’s and started forward.
“Ttt!’ he clicked his tongue in professional
concern. “Finger broken. Come here, sir.
Wait until I get my case open, I’ll bandage
it.”
“Come away from him, Montero!” called
Eaker savagely. “He’s—he’s an enemy!”
Hustling forward, Eaker led his wounded
companion toward their car. Dr. Parr smiled
again at Gardestang, and then at Tommy.
“I’ll have to beg a ride back to town with
you,” he said. “In return I’ll buy a drink,
if it’s not too early, or coffee if it is. And
maybe I’ll tell an enlightening story.”
“Enlightening story, sir?” repeated
Tommy.
Parr’s perpetual smile grew wider. “I’ve
been trying for years to get close to them.
As they hounded you, I hounded them, and
well for you I did. I kept them from kill¬
ing you.”
“I felt the bullet close to my cheek,” said
Tommy. “What are you driving at, Doctor?”
The three walked toward the car where
Lautoro waited with bright questioning
eyes.
“I know enough about you to know why
you’re enemies of Eaker and his precious
crowd,” elaborated Dr. Parr. “And I also
know their methods. Pistols aren’t exactly
their line.”
“Pictures are more their line,” put in
STRANGERS ON THE HEIGHTS
29
Gardestang, still unsure of this insistent new
friend. “Pictures, with funny inscriptions,
and holes punched.”
“Exactly. You observed how I took Eaker
by the arm. My own arm, the one that’s
left, is rather unusually strong. That’s what
medicos call compensation development. I
wanted to know why he was fumbling in
his jacket pocket. So I put my own hand
in and took away this, just as he tried to
put a sharp blade into it!”
He held it out as he spoke, a crumpled
bit of paper on which Tommy was sketched
at full length. Along the edge were such
strange characters as had been on the pierced
portrait of poor Rico.
“Well, am I acceptable as your friend?”
asked Dr. Parr. “Come on, have your man
drive to my house. I’ll tell you some things,
and show you others.”
CHAPTER VI
The Riddle of the Cult
T^ARR lived in a fashion to delight any
Mr comfort-loving man. In an outlying
section of Santiago he had taken three rooms
on the second floor of a white stone house,
with a balcony and a private staircase. The
apartment was furnished with the gatherings
of many voyages—leather-cushioned chairs,
solid old tables and desks, hangings of
Chinese silk, Indian tapestry, a Navajo rug,
and maps on which the doctor’s sole remain¬
ing hand had traced in ink his various sea
journeys. On every shelf lay pipes and
tobacco-pouches, and one wall of the sit¬
ting room was solidly filled to the ceiling
with tier above tier of books in at least
four languages.
The party was met at the door by a ser¬
vant of indeterminate oriental origin, to
whom Dr. Parr spoke in something that
was not Spanish. Immediately a coffee pot
was brought, and from it came the strong¬
est, blackest coffee Duke Gardestang and
Tommy Gatchell had ever drunk, even in
the Sahara. Lautoro squatted, Indian
fashion, on the balcony outside, and sipped
his own cupful, while Dr. Parr faced his
new friends across the coffee table.
“I promised you revelations,” he began.
“And I’ll make them short. What you’ve
blundered into is too serious for you to
spend much time lolling and lagging.”
“If you please, Doctor, we didn’t blunder
into it,” protested Tommy. “That bunch
we’re up against killed a friend of ours.”
“I know all that, or most of it I also
know that they’re out to kill you. Will
this be their second try, or their third?
Look for another shortly, perhaps before
you leave here.
“The beginning of my story shall be short¬
est of all. I was educated for medicine at
Tulane, and graduated just in time to get a
commission as a naval surgeon in the first
World War. After that, I stayed with the
Navy, nine years in all, until a little explo¬
sion at sea left me like this.”
He rapped his artificial arm with the
knuckles of his right hand. “After that, I
was put out with a pension, and not much
chance to get ahead as a physician and sur¬
geon. Of all the places I’d seen, Chile ap¬
pealed, for low prices and pleasant climate
and friendly people. I came down here, in
Nineteen Twenty-seven, and here I’ve lived
since. They tell me I missed a lot of strange
years up in the States, a depression. New
Deal, the second war. But things have been
lively here, too.
“I stumbled across your friends in the
cult, accidentally. You see, I was a friend
of a French emigre, by the name of Henri
Challoner.”
“Rico’s father!” said Tommy and Gardes¬
tang, in the same breath, and Dr. Parr
nodded his gray head.
“The same. Rico was going to a military
school, and seemed to be suffering from
nervous exhaustion. His father brought him
to my office one Easter vacation, to see if
I could help. And I couldn’t. Because,
after talking to the lad, I found he was
neck-deep in some strange and dangerous
cult.”
With his artificial arm he waved at the
shelf of books. “Look there, and you’ll find
what I’m talking about. I went into psychol¬
ogy of the abnormal and the occult in school,
and there was plenty to interest the psychic-
minded. The authorities thought it was all
imagination and hysteria, and once I thought
the same. But I got reading in the subject,
after talking to many Chileans who took
as serious facts such things as witchcraft,
diabolic possession, and magic. On that top
shelf you’ll find three big books, all printed
in England, translated by priests. There’s
‘Malleus Maleficarum, Compendium Male-
ficaruna,’ and Nicholas Remy’s ‘Demonalitria.’
Step over there, one of you, and bring the
Compendium.”
Tommy Gatchell rose to comply.
30
STARTLING STORIES
“I’m afraid I was baffled by the vague
conversation I had with Rico,” went on Dr.
Parr. “He was trying, poor kid, to keep
the ugly secrets he was pledged not to tell.
After that, his father died, and his mother.
Meanwhile, my reading was showing me a
few things. And my ramblings and spyings
showed me more. You have the book, Mr.
Gatchell?” He took it. “Let’s see—Chap¬
ter Twelve. Here it is, telling how devil-
worshippers have organizations and set meet¬
ing-days and rituals. Not pretty reading,
but it happens to be basically true. I’ve
seen it.”
A CHILL ran down the spine of both
Americans.
“Seen devil worship?” echoed Gardestang.
“Here?”
“Here, and at Valparaiso, and in a village
toward the mountains.” Ke gestured vaguely
eastward. “It’s a place called Serrano, on
the lower slope of Mount Cachacamool. And
I don’t think that anyone lives there who
isn’t a believer. But I’m ahead of my story.
I picked up a name from Rico, of a teacher
at his school. I had leisure to check up,
and found that the teacher had friends in
the slums of Santiago, with whom he met
about twice a month. One night I got on
top of a building—hard to do when you’re
shy an arm—and watched through a sky¬
light. I go right along with Guazzo, who
wrote the Compendium. That worship is
ugly, but it has power.”
“What was it like?” asked Tommy.
“A group of twelve men and women, who
sacrificed to something that wasn’t man or
woman.”
“A beast?” suggested Gardestang.
Again the gray haired man shook his head.
“No. Not a beast, either. In Guazzo’s
book here, it’s called a devil.”
“Oh, nonsense!” exploded Tommy. “What
did the thing look like?”
“It was indistinct, sitting on a kind of
throne in the firelight. But I knew it held
itself upright after a fashion, had legs and
arms—at least, upper limbs with which it
could get a grasp. It had a long muzzle,
with fangs. Its eyes glittered. And it was
covered with thick, rank hair.”
“Somebody dressed up,” pronounced
Tommy. But his coffee cup trembled in his
hand.
“I’m afraid not, son. I’ve been an out¬
door man, and I know the difference be¬
tween hairy clothing and hairy hide. It
was grotesque enough, but it wasn’t a dis¬
guise. It was a devil.”
“Part man, part beast,” summed up Gar¬
destang. “It sounds like a werewolf.”
“It might have been just that,” nodded
Dr. Parr. “Don’t stare and goggle. I’ve
got another book here.” This time he rose
to get it, a great ledger-like volume pasted
full of notes and clippings. “This is my
own collection, of strange news items.”
“Like Charles Fort’s?” asked Gardestang.
“A little, but not so indiscriminate. After
all, Fort wasn’t quite sure what he was after,
and I was.” The doctor’s finger ran along
a page. “Here we are—United Press dis¬
patch, dated Los Angeles, March 20, 1932.”
The clipping read:
Strange stories of werewolf-like animals
which range through Yunnan province in
China, robbing graves and defying capture,
were recounted today by the Rev. Harold
Young, missionary, in an interview with the
Illustrated Daily News. The Reverend Young
said the animals, shaggy like a wolf, run in
packs and are known to the natives as taws.
They are immune to bullets and knives, the
missionary said, and described an encounter
with one.
“The first thing I saw were the eyes, which
seemed phosphorescent,” he said. “They gave
off a greenish light. They came charging at
us, their arms swinging wide. When erect
they are about five feet tall. One rushed
against me and hurled me several feet.
“I recovered my balance and leveled a
twelve-gauge shotgun. It was loaded with
slugs that would kill any living thing at close
range. It was an easy shot, and I know I
didn’t miss. I closed in but there was nothing
there. The beast seemed to recede like some¬
thing in a nightmare.”
One of the animals bit him on the leg, leav¬
ing prints as from human teeth, the missionary
asserted.
Dr. Parr closed his scrap book. “I’ve kept
that little item because what the Reverend
Young calls a taw sounds exactly like the
thing they worshiped that night, and like
things I later saw,” he said. “And so will
you.” He mused a little, “Yunnan Province
—I’ve known men who’ve been there. It’s
on the edge of Tibet, plenty of mountains,
like Chile.”
“Back up a bit. Doctor,” urged Garde¬
stang. “You saw the thing again?”
“Several times. I saw it today, well back
among the trees at the duel. I didn’t want
to spoil your day, so I didn’t point it out.
But it was there, and probably it did some¬
thing to cure Captain Montero’s wounded
hand, after they refused to let me touch it.”
“It can heal, then?” prompted Tommy.
“It can do lots of things. The gifts it
offers keep its worshipers going. For in-
STRANGERS ON THE HEIGHTS
31
stance, it teaches them how to make gold.
There you are, goggling again. Shifting of
element-properties to change common metals
into gold is called within possibility by
chemists. This little group of diabolists can
do it, for I’ve watched and listened, through
the window of a fourth-class hotel. Hard to
hang to that ledge, it was. And there are
other inventions and advances.”
Gardestang suddenly threw out his hand
in impulsive agreement.
“By heaven, sir, you’re right. Remember,
Tommy, that unwired dictaphone?”
“Those are common. If I’m to be known
as their enemy, they’ll try to plant such
things in my place, to say nothing of bombs
and booby traps of various kinds. As a
matter of fact, gentlemen, I’ve stolen one
of their receivers—stole it from Mr. Eaker
himself. Want to see it?”
Parr opened a drawer in a sideboard and
took it out, a flat round object of gray metal,
the size of a dinner plate and fitted with a
diaphragm behind a protection of netting.
Dr. Parr stooped and cocked an ear.
“Nothing doing now. I can’t be sure where
this thing picks up voices, but from time
to time I can get them. I’ve heard dis¬
cussions and arguments. Lately I heard
about you two and the plan to egg you
into a duel. That’s why I was at the Brag-
anza, and homed in.”
“The thing must be a miracle of radio,”
said Tommy thoughtfully. “Why not take
it apart and look inside?”
“I have,” replied Dr. Parr. “And there’s
nothing inside.”
“Nothing?”
“A sort of fuzzy product, something I
don't understand. And I won’t take it to
experts, because I’d have to answer difficult
questions about where I got it.”
“Let me look inside,” said Gardestang
eagerly, but Dr. Parr lifted his hand.
“Hark! We’re about to hear something.”
And indeed the muffled murmur of several
voices beat up from the strange instrument.
CHAPTER VII
Commandos Against the Devils
V OICES sounded, in a confusion which
blocked each other out for a moment.
Then one dominated, a voice flat and dull
and expressionless, speaking in Spanish:
[Turn page]
32
STARTLING STORIES
“Failure again. We do not have room for
failures.”
“Please listen!” That was plainly Eaker,
humble and frightened. “These are men
like none we have encountered yet. They
know our powers, or something of our
powers. And we cannot pierce their de¬
fenses.”
“There is little time to make excuses,"
said the flat voice. “I speak now to all who
have the receivers. These enemies, whose
names are Gatchell and Gardestang, must
die. If they do not die at once, then you
failures shall die. My words are finished.”
No more was said by the voices from the
disc. Dr. Parr looked at his two guests.
“No set hours for these little programs,
gentlemen. Only once in a while do I hear
something, when they switch on their
speaker to contact all hands. I deduce by
this time that you’re going to be badly
treated in the near future. I’m on the list,
Tommy Gatchell smiled above his pipe.
“You’re kind, Doctor, and probably are be¬
ing helpful. But I can’t get the thought
out of my mind that, if Eaker and his as¬
sociates were really smart, they’d go about
planting a trouble guy on us just as you’ve
been planted.”
“How so?” the doctor smiled back plainly
intrigued.
“Look at it. You fail to get our confidence
last night. And so, at the duel, you appear
to befriend us by snitching Eaker’s little
sketch of me.”
“He tried to knife it,” reminded Dr. Parr.
“We’re immune to that. Anyway, the
gesture reassures us, we come along with
you, drink your coffee, which might be poi¬
soned—”
“And Dr. Parr immunized against the poi¬
son,” put in Gardestang. The doctor nodded.
“I’ll finish it. The receiver which I said
I stole would be my bona fide equipment
as a member of Eaker’s little circle. And
my research and findings only my natural
knowledge as a cultist. That’s logic, young
man. Well, why do you trust me?"
“Because logic isn’t reason,” said Tommy.
“It’s only the vehicle of reason. We trust
you, doctor, because you’re acting absolutely
naturally, not putting on an act. Meanwhile,
what way wili their attack come?”
At that moment Lautoro, rose from his
place by the door, to confront someone who
had rushed up the stair from the street.
“What do you want?” he challenged.
“The young senores, the two who visit
here,” came the breathless voice of a woman.
Both Gardestang and Tommy turned
quickly. They saw, beyond the broad figure
of Lautoro, a slender form in white, an
oval face of golden tint, framed in black
wings of hair. Two wide imploring eyes
of jetty black searched the face of Tommy.
“Please!” she called to him. “You know
Senorita Challoner! She is in danger!”
“Danger!” echoed Tommy.
“Danger?” burst from Gardestang’s lips.
They both started toward her.
“Yes. She heard that there had been
disaster in a duel, disaster to one of you,
and left her house hurriedly. The man who
brought the news lied. I am her friend, I
came along. Near here, a group of men
seized her. I got away.”
“Eaker’s little gang of scavengers are
ready to play rough again,” said Gardestang
to Tommy. He turned to the girl. “Where
are they now?”
“They hold her in a house not far off.”
The young woman made a vague gesture.
She was pretty and modishly dressed. “I
escaped for they only wanted Theolinda.
And I came here.”
She put the back of one hand to her fore¬
head and staggered a little. Tommy quickly
caught her in his arms.
“Steady,” he said. “Here, rest on the sofa.
Duke, it seems to me that we’d better go
into action, quick. They may not have ex¬
pected us to hear so quickly, and a surprise
attack is always good, in war or out.”
“Wait,” said Dr. Parr, and moved to where
Tommy was bending over the girl. “Senor¬
ita,” he said, “how did you know these two
young senores were with me?”
She stared. “Why—why—”
“And how did these co-called captors of
Miss Challoner bring her so convenietly
close?” he pursued grimly. “Is it perhaps
a clever story, to lure my young friends into
a trap?”
“Protect me, senor,” she sobbed to Tommy,
and snuggled into his arms.
OCTOR PARR moved quickly. His
artificial arm shot out, and Gardestang
heard the sudden chock of metal against
bone, then the sharp cry of pain that the
girl emitted. A moment later Tommy had
taken a backward step away from her. Parr
was kicking something shiny across the car¬
pet. Gardestang stooped and picked it up,
a stout, straight-bladed dagger.
The girl whimpered and tried to run, but
Lautoro was again filling the door with
STRANGERS ON THE HEIGHTS
33
his broad body. Tommy came up beside
her.
“You tried to knife me,” he accused.
She was caught, but plucky. “Must I ex¬
plain why, my friend? I cannot escape
from you. So I shall be silent.”
“Is this some doing of a man named
Eaker?” persisted Tommy. She smiled and
shook her head. She exhibited a drop of
blood on a knuckle.
"The gray-haired senor, he strikes hard
and with a hand of iron,” she observed.
“Literally so,” agreed Dr. Parr, lifting his
own gloved fingers of metal. “If this hadn't
been artificial, I might have cut myself
disarming her. Not gallant, but necessary.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” said Tommy. “That
settles the question of whether you’re to be
trusted or not. As for you,” and he turned
back to the girl, “tell us your name.”
Again she shook her head. Lautoro made
a deep growling sound in his chest, and
moved ponderously toward her.
She whimpered again, and tried to retreat.
Tommy barred her way in that direction,
and she suddenly doubled around Lautoro
and gained the outside threshold. But then
she fell across it, and lay still. Will reached
her first, lifted her and carried her in.
“She’s dead,” said Dr. Parr at once. “Lay
her down on the sofa.” He bent above her.
“Heart disease, a doctor would say, but we
know better.”
“We have seen such cases of heart disease
before,” finished Gardestang for him. “And
somebody with a mechanical voice just said,
over that stolen receiver of yours, that those
who failed would die. This little lady was the
first. Poor thing!”
"Three strikes against them so far,” com¬
mented Tommy. He found an Indian blanket
and stretched it over the still form. “What
will you do, Doctor?”
Dr. Parr was already taking action. He
summoned his oriental servant.
“Seek the police,” he commanded. “Say
that a young woman came to me for medical
treatment, and died suddenly in my office. I
shall be gone when they come, but I shall
return and be at their disposal for ques¬
tions or reports.”
The servant departed, and Dr. Parr faced
the two young men.
“I said I'd be gone, you heard. Let’s all
be gone. Just now they know where we
are. What’s the best defense against at¬
tack?”
“Counter-attack!” cried Gardestang. He
picked up the knife that had been intended
for Tommy. “Are we armed?”
Dr. Parr went to a stand, pulled open a
drawer, and produced a beautifully kept .38
revolver.
“And I have this,” contributed Tommy,
drawing from his jacket pocket the double-
barreled pistol he had used in the duel.
“I brought it along, you see, I wasn’t quite
as trusting as you thought, Dr. Parr. I
didn’t really take my hand off of that gun
until the girl came in.”
“But you trusted her,” chided Dr. Parr.
His eyes came back to Gardestang. “You
asked if we were armed, and that’s our
reply. What next?”
“Tommy and I know where, or approx¬
imately where, this crowd has headquarters,”
said Gardestang. “No more than a few steps
from our hotel. What’s wrong with a little
journey there?”
Tommy grinned. “Nothing’s wrong. I’m
for it. But if they’re ready, we’ll use our
Commando training.”
"They’re really wide open,” broke in Garr-
destang. “They’re too used to dealing with
people through mental channels. And they
can’t get to us, nor to Dr. Parr as I figure,
or they’d have known of him and settled
him long ago. That makes three capable
personalities, all old fighting blades, to slide
into their holy of holies. And what’s keep¬
ing us?”
Tommy spoke to Dr. Parr. “You and I
are both ex-officers, sir. Duke Gardestang
here was only a sergeant, but I move that
we defer to his greater training and aptitude.
You see, I was an aviator, you were a naval
doctor, but Duke was on many Commando
raids with the British. And this is Com¬
mando stuff, all over again.” He turned his
steely eyes back to Gardestang. “Carry on,
Duke. You’re unanimously elected to lead
the raid. Shall I salute?”
"You’ll need all your hands and feet for
what we’re heading into,” said Gardestang
“Bring those guns, gentlemen, and Lautoro
will drive us into the district, then speed
away back to his own place. On the way.
I’ll explain a few plans and signals to you.”
CHAPTER VIII
The Hushed Hallways
B ETWEEN brick and stucco buildings
the alley lay deserted in the lazy hour
after lunch. Along it moved three men.
34
STARTLING STORIES
One walked rapidly in the middle of the
roadway, a big, broad, alert young man in a
tropical hat and with his coat buttoned.
His right hand was thrust inside it as if on a
weapon. To the rear of him some six paces,
close to the side of the alley at the right,
came an older, lean man, equally vigilant,
cautious and swift. His right hand was in
his coat pocket. The left hand was stiffly
curved inside a glove. Further back, and
.skirting the left side of the alley, came a
third man, also young and with eyes like
triangles. His right hand, too, grasped a
hidden weapon.
All of them kept a careful lookout.
Gardestang, in the lead, spied a certain
doorway. He remembered the first meet¬
ing with Val Eaker in front of the doorway,
and the words that Eaker had spoken of
where that passage led. “A most interest¬
ing room that has no windows and very little
light.” Yes, not far this side of the door
was a window, its pane completely covered
with black tarry paint, and its frame nailed
fast.
Gardestang snapped the fingers of his free
hand, and his two companions came up on
either side of him. Gardestang pointed to
the window, then spread the skirt of his coat
against one of the panes. Dr. Parr, drawing
from his pocket the .38 revolver, smashed
hard against the cloth-covered glass. It
broke inward without too much noise. An¬
other blow almost cleared the frame.
Now, a certain amount of risk was neces¬
sary. Since the window was nailed and
obscured, it probably had no observer be¬
yond, but if it did there would be trouble.
Gardestang took no time to think further.
He dived through, head first, rolling over on
the floor inside as he had been taught to
do in his Commando training. He crouched,
his hand holding the knife they had captured
from the girl. For a second he screwed his
eyes tight shut, then opened them. He
could see a little, enough to make out a
bare, dusty room, and a half-open door that
gave onto a corridor that had some faint
wash of light. No sound or motion any¬
where. He snapped his fingers again.
In came Tommy, lithe and cautious, then
Dr. Parr. The three waited another mo¬
ment, and Gardestang moved forward, noise¬
less for all his bulk. He kept his big body
at a crouch, knife close against his chest,
free hand outward. Behind him Tommy and
the doctor waited with drawn guns to cover
his advance. Gardestang reached the door¬
way, peered cautiously out. To the right,
at a far distance, came the hint of light. The
other way was ail darkness.
He beckoned Tommy forward to take
post at the threshold, and moved along the
dark way. He approached an open arch to
the left, and paused there for a moment.
His eyes, sharpening constantly in the gloom,
made out a door with light-cracks around
it, the entrance that gave on the alley.
There was a chair, and someone—a guard,
lolled in it. Gardestang dropped without
a sound to a prone position and adroitly
slid himself across the field of vision. He
found the end of the hall, and a door. Gin¬
gerly he tried it, and found it locked. Back
he crawled, past the guard, to the place
where his friends waited. Again he silently
beckoned, and the three of them picked
their way toward the lighted distance.
Two open doors they passed on the jour¬
ney. One gave off a musty smell of old
clothes and sweat, and a noise of several
persons breathing regularly and deeply—
plainly a sleeping room of some sort. An¬
other doorway revealed a tenantless room
beyond. Gardestang entered, groped, and
dared to strike a match. It was a sort of
study, and on a desk lay many sheets written
in the strange characters that he had twice
seen, once on the picture of Rico, once on
the picture of Tommy. He had no time
to speculate about them now. Turning, he
motioned for his friends to join him, and
went on.
A blue light was coming from an angle
in the corridor. Scouting around it, Gardes¬
tang found a glasspancd door. This he
approached on hands and knees. Tommy
and Dr. Parr lay flat on the dusty floor at
the bend.
Slowly, cautiously, Gardestang lifted him¬
self and peered through the lower edge of
the pane. Inside, other corridors branched
here, and one of them was lighted. At
the beginning of this lighted corridor, well
in view in the blueness, stood three figures,
one of them Val Eakers. A second was
vaguely familiar, perhaps one of the two
ugly men who had accompanied Eaker at
the first interview. The third was not a
man at all.
W HAT had Dr. Parr said about were-
wolfs and grotesque devils? What
had he read about the things that came
down from Himalayan fastnesses to plague
Chinese peasants, the things called taws
that were proof against steel and shot?
Gardestang wished he remembered in de-
STRANGERS ON THE HEIGHTS
tail, for this was one such.
It reached about to Eaker’s armpit, though
it might have stood taller had it been clean¬
limbed and erect. Gardestang saw its sharp-
projecting muzzle, the white of fangs as its
mouth moved, up-thrusting ears, and green
glow in its eyes. Although shaggy with
gray or black hair, the awkward arms
clutched at the mantle around, which cov¬
ered the shoulders. One arm gesticulated,
and the extremity, though matted and
masked with hair, was more like a hand than
a paw. To Gardestang’s mind came a fleet¬
ing memory of Egyptian myths about Anu-
bis and other animal-headed gods, of the
semi-beast sculptures of ancient Assyria, of
the many legends of brutes that stood up
and talked.
This one was talking, and Eaker gave ear
'^spectfully, almost humbly. Finally the
thing turned and headed off along the lighted
corridor. Eaker followed, a pace in the
ear, like an inferior. The other man stayed
where he was, like a sentry.
Once again Gardestang snapped his fin¬
gers. As Tommy and Dr. Parr came for¬
ward. he himself rose to his full height.
The sentry’s back was toward him, the beast-
figure and Eaker had passed out of sight
along the hall. Gardestang thrust the door
open, gained a position behind the man with
two strides, and struck with the knife.
His task was to kill, before the sentry
could turn and resist him, see him, or even
know what struck him. Commando tactics
teach one to do that. The knife was sharp
and heavily made, and Gardestang’s driving
arm was strong—strong enough to strike and
sever the spinal cord. The man fell forward,
and Gardestang’s other hand caught him,
easing him down without noise to the floor.
A moment later Tommy Gatchell and Parr
had joined him.
Gardestang carefully breathed out, and
was able to whisper without any carrying
hiss.
“I saw Eaker and one of that werewolf
group you talked about. Dr. Parr,” he said.
“They headed together up the corridor. From
what I surmise, Eaker isn’t the head here.
It’s the wolf creature.”
“One of many,” Parr whispered back
“Now what?”
“Continue the raid,” said Gardestang, and
once more led off.
They stole along the corridor, in which
the blue light grew stronger. Coming to
another angle, they paused and Gardestang
peered around just in time to see Eaker and
his strange companion emerge from a door-
w'ay with glassed panels, and go together
into what seemed a large courtyard beyond.
As the door opened, there came forth a
rhythmic mutter of machinery.
The three put their heads close together,
for a little council. The motor-noise al¬
lowed them to raise their voices a little.
“Machines, eh?” said Tommy. “We might
have known that they’d have something
That special radio equipment must need a
power source we know nothing about.”
“And it ties into this mind-reading and
mind-controlling activity,” suggested Dr.
Parr. “After all, diabolists have always made
claims to great scientific knowledge. They’ve
found, or say they’ve found, ways to make
gold out of lead, and to prolong life, and
even raise the dead.”
“They’ve left their engine room,” said
Gardestang. “Come on, let’s go in.”
"And if anyone else is in there?” prompted
Tommy.
“Deal with him at once. I have a feel¬
ing that if we can crack up their machines,
we’ve gone far toward smashing this out¬
fit. Ready? Come on.”
He moved past the bend of the corridor,
pushed open the door, and walked into the
blue-lighted room. His two friends, pistols
drawn and lifted, were at his heels.
They stood, and stared—and stared.
The room was spacious, high-ceilinged.
square, spotlessly clean. It rang and quiv¬
ered and leaped with the sound and shiver
of mighty mechanism.
But the space confined by its four walls,
floor and ceiling was empty.
And as they stood there, gazing, strange
things were happening to Theolinda Chal-
loner. From the moment Gardestang had
left her, hours previous to the duel, she had
felt neglected as never before. She wai not
used to neglect.
I T WAS not that Gardestang and Tommy
Gatchell thought little of her—it would
be hard to know the sister of Rico and not
be attracted — but that they took it for
granted she would know everything was all
right. It never entered Tommy Gatchell’s
head the girl was uncertain regarding the
outcome of the duel or that she might be
unduly worried. Had not other things in¬
tervened, he would have sent a messenger
to her home at once. As it was, the girl
sat in her garden and watched the mounting
sun with troubled, wondering eyes.
The duel—how had it turned out? Who
STARTLING STORIES
had won, and what of the winner? She
wished to talk to someone, but there were
only servants. The matter needed secrecy,
she knew. Like many another woman, she
bewailed in her heart the fact that she had
the dread duty of waiting while men fought.
Then a man came toward her, from the
gateway that led to the front street.
“Senorita!” he said diffidently. '‘Permit
me. I am from the civic hospital. Two
young men are hurt there, and have been
asking for you.”
“Americans?” she demanded, rising
quickly.
He bowed. “Yes. Both hurt. There was
a duel, and later a violent encounter between
seconds of both sides. The police are being
called. One of the Americans is dying and
begged that you be brought. He says there
is a message of utmost importance for you
to hear.”
TheoHnda started for the house. The man
moved to her side. He was a gaunt, courte¬
ous person, but his authoritative gesture
made her pause.
“I came in your car, driven by a servant
called Lautoro. Look, he waits. We can go
through the garden gate.”
The girl looked. In the open gateway
stood a broad man she took to be Lautoro.
Even as she looked, he moved back into
the street.
“Lautoro, yes,” she agreed. “I’ll go.”
At the curb outside was parked a big
sedan, also recognizable. The driver al¬
ready sat at the wheel, and the engine purred.
Her companion held the rear door open for
her, and she got in. Then she sat down sud¬
denly, staring around her.
“My car,” she stammered. “Here, inside,
the cushions are different. I never had these
accessories. It has been changed.”
“Pardon, Senorita Challoner.” That was
the gaunt man, getting in and closing the
door. “You are deceived. The car is changed,
not inside, but outside. And it is not your
car, only a similar one, with false license
plates and other alterations to its exterior
to trick you. Please, no scenes. These doors
are locked, and I hope I do not have to
struggle with you.”
“Lautoro! ” she cried. The driver glanced
back once. His figure was that of her In¬
dian servant, but his grinning face she had
never seen before. He started the car away
from the curb.
‘The driver, too, is only superficially like
your own,” breathed her companion. “Ciga¬
rette. senorita? Perm'? me to introduce
myself—Bias Cervara, a name not unknown
to august officials in police and counter¬
espionage bureaus. But I intend neither
crime nor treason where you are concerned.
I serve only as escort to one who is zealous
to make your acquaintance.”
Theolinda glared at him. Her hand struck
the cigarette case from his fingers, and she
moved to the farthest corner of the seat.
Bias Cervara chuckled, picked up his fallen
case, and lighted a cigarette for himself.
“That is better,” he said in a voice of good-
humored approval. “You are disposed to
be reasonable. We shall get along famously
yet.”
“The Americans,” she forced herself to
say. “What hospital?”
“Oh, that!” He flourished the thought
away with the hand that held his cigarette.
“They are, I am sorry to admit, quite well
and victorious. The young man called
Gatchell impaired the shooting hand of poor
Montero. We made the story of their
plight to help trap you. Perhaps it was
cruel. But it was the best we could do at
the moment.”
“If they are free and unhurt, they will
come after me,” Theolinda Challoner prom¬
ised grimly. “You are not yet aware of
what type of men they are.”
“We are beginning to find out,” nodded
Bias Cervara. “We have found out enough
to make me agree with you. Yes, they will
come after you. We are now preparing for
their reception.”
S HE looked at him sidelong. “I have
changed my mind,” she said suddenly.
“A cigarette, please.”
Again he extended the case, and she took
one. “A light,” she requested, and he offered
the glowing end of his own cigarette. Ignit¬
ing the one she had taken, she suddenly
puffed smoke full into his smiling eyes.
Blinded and off guard, he bowed his head.
She snatched the metal case and struck at
him with its edge. Blood sprang from his
brow, and she struck again. He groped for
her, but she cut the back of his hand with
the sharp edge of the case.
The driver growled in his throat, and
drove the car quickly to the curb. There
he put on the brakes, and with two swift
darting motions of his hands, drew the cur¬
tains. Then, rising to his knees on his seat,
he seized Theolinda’s shoulders and held her
powerless.
Cervara wiped his bloody face with a silk
handkerchief from his pocket. After that
STRANGERS ON THE HEIGHTS
31
he used it to bind her hands, which were
clamped in the grip of the driver. Defeated,
she sank back in her corner. The car be¬
gan to move again.
“I honor you for your effort, senorita,”
said Cervara. “The story of it will please
my superiors. But you shall get no other
chance.”
The remainder of the journey passed in
silence.
They came to an alley near the Hotel
Braganza, and there the car rolled into a
garage. The driver emerged and closed the
door behind them. Then he and Cervara
helped Theolinda out, leaving her hands still
bound. They went through a rear door,
down a long passage, and into a lighted
room beyond.
Eaker sat there at a desk, studying what
appeared to be a large loose-leaf notebook
or ledger. He set it down, marking his
place with a finger, and looked at Cervara.
"Blood on you?” he smiled. “We appear
to do plenty of bleeding. Why did you
tie Senorita Challoner?”
“We had to. She attacked me.”
“Then release her at once, and go wash
your face.”
Cervara and the driver departed. Eaker
faced the girl.
“I’ve long hoped to meet you,” he said,
with a great show of cordiality. “I knew
your brother well.”
“Why am I here?” she demanded.
“To help me, and to be helped.” Eaker
looked at her earnestly. “Haven’t you any
wishes, senorita?”
“I wish to leave here at once.”
“Oh, that will follow. But first, can’t I
help you to a real ambition? Your family
was wealthy once. Wouldn’t you like to
regain some money?”
“I suppose you can change dirt into gold,”
she mocked.
He nodded, quite seriously. “I can, and
I can change gold into dirt. Or do you
prefer position, power? South American
women are beginning to show that interest.
I can place you in a high post.”
“As a figurehead for your organization?”
she challenged. “I am interested in nothing
but freedom from your quarters and your
company.”
“That has a harsh ring, but I can add other
inducements. Isn’t there a rather interest¬
ing pair of Americans in your mind? A
young ex-fiyer named Gatchell, and a bigger
one who is called Gardestang, Duke Garde-
stang? You betray yourself, senorita. You
are interested in them, particularly Garde-
stang.”
“They are friends,” she said, softly.
“And, I venture to predict, Gardestang
may become more than a friend. Or such
is your hope. Don’t be shy, senorita. I’m
used to talking sensibly and honestly.”
Her eyes flashed fire at him. “Sensibly!”
she echoed. “Honestly! Will you sit and
deny that you have killed my brother, that
you have tried to kill these other two men,
and all in the devil’s own worship?”
He shook his head slowly. “I could not
deny those things, if I were to be sensible
and honest. But let me make you an assur¬
ance. I want your help to turn these young
Americans from their idiotic enmity towards
me. Such help from you will be a favor to
them. It will preserve their lives for them,
and happiness for you. Because — you
haven’t denied it—you do turn in your heart
toward Gardestang. Just as he turns to you.
Don’t doubt me. I’m a trained observer in
love, as in all else.”
“You’re insolent!” she cried.
“That, too,” he admitted airily. “Now,
let me continue. Your friends have visited
me here and I have them in a trap.”
“Another lie,” she accused.
The girl started forward, but something
barred her, as if a wall extended between
them. Her uplifted hands felt an unyielding
surface which she could not see.
“Oh, I’m protected,” he assured her. “But
will you turn to the right? I’m going to
show you that I’m speaking the truth about
your friends.”
He pressed a button. As she glanced in
the direction he indicated, something lighted
on the wall, like a small motion picture
screen.
Theolinda was familiar with successful
television, but here was a clearer image than
any she had seen.
It was the image of three men. The
nearest of these was Gardestang!
CHAPTER IX
The Machine That Wasn’t There
G ARDESTANG, Gatchell and Dr. Parr
stood silent in the room that hummed
and vibrated. Tommy Gatchell made a little
gesture toward the center of the room.
“It’s there,” he muttered. “We can’t see
it, but it’s yonder. What’s it for?”
38
STARTLING STORIES
Gardestang shook his head heavily.
“You’re the mechanic, Tommy. I’m not.”
He carefully slid a foot forward, advanced
a step. His mind recalled all he had heard
of invisibility.
What made it invisible? Speed too fast
for the eye to follow, as with an airplane
propeller. Complete transparency. Absence
of color. Warping of light rays. Illusion.
Distance. He took another step.
The hum seemed no louder, but he sensed
the vibration almost within himself. He
put out a hand, carefully, questioningly—
and jumped back with a muffled exclamation.
His left hand had sought the touch of
the unseen thing, and had succeeded. His
longest finger, the middle finger of his left
hand, spurted blood. The extreme tip of
it had been shaved away, little more than
skin deep, but as neatly as though by a
surgical knife. He shook blood drops to
the floor, and held up the wound for his
friends to see.
Dr. Parr caught his wrist and stared.
“Let it bleed,’’ he advised under his breath.
“Any chance of poison or infection will be
lessened. Have you any guess about where
“My only guess,” said Gardestang, in the
semi-whisper they had mutually adopted, “is
that this cult run by Val Eaker has some¬
thing to worship — something with power
and wisdom.”
“None of that, Duke,” said Tommy at
once. “We’re not here to pay compliments
to the other side.”
“He’s paying no compliments,” reminded
Dr. Parr. “He’s estimating the situation.
And maybe I can finish for him. The things
this gang has—that radio receiver, the mind-
transferals, the killing by pictures—must be
drawn from some power source. There,”
he waved his artificial hand at the humming
center of the room, “you have it.”
At that moment doors opened and men
came in, all around them.
Fighting desperately to the death, against
many men and upon the tenth of a second’s
warning, had been taught to Gardestang by
experts. It had been a reflex with him for
years of army service. Now he put the
captured knife deep in the first man to reach
him, felt the hilt spin out of his hand as
the point locked fast in a bone, and gave
the falling body a shove so that it would
temporarily block another charging form.
That earned moment gave him time to
whirl, catch the wrist of an extended knife
hand and pull another enemy toward him.
He struck with the heel of his own hand,
not the knuckles. The solid driving buffet
snapped back a chin. As his adversary
sprawled, he gained possession of another
knife, larger and heavier, to replace the one
he had lost. At the same time pistols banged
at his elbow. Tommy and Parr were into
the fight.
“Steady, Duke,” Tommy cautioned him,
and fired over his shoulder. Another of the
opposition fell, the fourth in little more than
as many breaths. The others shrank back,
nonplussed, though they still numbered a
dozen to the three raiders. Parr laughed.
“I told you they were feeble specimens,”
he gibed. “What are we waiting for? Let’s
take them!”
The enemy were ranging themselves know¬
ingly across the room. They had a baleful
bulwark, Gardestang knew — the invisible
mechanism.
But Parr moved forward. His artificial
arm pawed ahead of him. It suddenly be¬
came a focus of wild vibration, the air of
the chamber was rent with a tortured scream
of metal. Something thickened into visi¬
bility as water-vapor thickens in lowering
temperature. A smoky suggestion of un¬
rhythmic rods, levers, wheels, and belts.
“I’ve jimmied it!” Parr was crying, and
sprang back. He waved his metal hand.
Three of its gloved metal fingers had been
shorn away. “Look, it’s stopping. Already
it’s slowed to where we can see it.”
The men opposite were jabbering and
yelling in dismay. A new one came in from
somewhere. Merino, his pistol hand a great
clump of bandages. But his other hand
held a squirt-device. From this came vapor,
that billowed murkily. Gardestang rec¬
ognized, from bygone chemical - warfare
schools, the color and scent of that vapor.
But only for a moment. He was falling,
and had no senses with which to hear or
feel the impact of his body on the floor.
L ATER he wakened in a deeper, dimmer
room of the strange rookery. His
opening eyes showed him the face of Eaker,
gray and murderous, stooping above him.
Gardestang swore an army oath, and tried
to get up and hit that face. He could not.
His arms and legs were tightly bound, and
his first move seemed to translate itself
into a grip on his throat. He subsided on
stone flagging.
“Easy, easy,” cautioned Eaker. “You see,
we drew up your knees and fastened them
to a draw-noose around your neck. If you
STRANGERS ON THE HEIGHTS
39
struggle, you’ll choke yourself. That’s bet¬
ter. We want you alive."
“Why?” growled Gardestang. “I wouldn’t
want you alive.”
“Because you can’t profit from me,” said
Eaker.
“Profit?” repeated Gardestang.
Someone else pushed into range of his
vision—Theolinda, as pale as Eaker, but
worried instead of grim.
“Duke!” she quavered. “You are all
right?”
Two men caught her and pulled her back.
“Yes, we have your pretty friend,” Eaker
said. “Baited her here with her fear for
you. And she was with me when our tele¬
vision disclosed you had invaded our strong¬
hold. Surprised? We found those corpses
you left on your trail. It wasn’t many min¬
utes until we closed in.” He spoke to a
lieutenant. “Are the Others coming?”
“I asked,” replied his companion. “I
tapped at their door, and when there was
no answer, I dared speak. One replied that
they would come when they were ready.
Something was said to your disadvantage,
and it was commanded that you be ready
with explanations.”
“Explanations!” groaned Eaker, dropping
his manner of superior scorn. “They ought
:o be satisfied when I turn over these
prisoners.”
Parr spoke up, cheerful and mocking, from
omewhere on the floor near Gardestang.
“I sabotaged your power plant, I believe.
This old iron fin of mine was as good as any
monkey wrench ever thrown. I was taking
a chance on being shocked to shreds, but
the only shock seems to be to you. How
does it feel to lose that gadget, Eaker?”
“Shut up,” Eaker told him, more sadly
than roughly. “You haven’t the slightest
conception of what you have done. You
wrecked a device that foreran all scientific
power-mechanics, wrecked the only one, as
far as I know, that was permitted to
humanity.”
“I don’t consider that humanity’s hard
pushed without it.” That was Tommy
Gatchell, from beyond Parr, and his voice
held the same tone of amused mockery as
the old naval doctor’s. “From what I gather,
you paid plenty for it, Eaker. Not that your
soul would command a high price on any
healthy market, but it’s all you had to trade
to demons, isn’t it? Or am I out of the
fairy-tale groove?”
“Prop them higher,” Eaker bade his men,
and they obeyed.
Gardestang found himself in sitting posi¬
tion, back to a wall, his knees drawn up.
Ropes encircled his body from shoulder;, to
ankles. In addition, a noose held his neck
tightly and its end was looped around his
knees. He could not straighten his legs
without strangling himself.
Gardestang’s first glance was for Theo¬
linda. She stood beside a door of heavy
planking, guarded by Merino and one other
armed man. Her eyes met his, and she
dared smile a little, as if trying to hearten
him. He smiled back, warmly and grate¬
fully.
“You’ve got us,” he said to Eaker. “What
are you going to do now?”
“Nothing. You’ll be out of my hands.
The Others will dispose of you.”
Parr, next to Gardestang, made a noise
with his lips and tongue that, to say the
least, was vulgar in a seasoned gentleman
and scholar. From beyond him, Tommy
chuckled.
“You say ‘Others’ with a capital O,” he
remarked to Eaker. “Who are they?”
“The givers of power, the holders of
hearts,” intoned one of Eaker’s men, as if
reciting from a ritual committed to memory.
“Fear is their servant,” added another.
“You will learn, you who would not be
warned.”
“I doubt if your minds will grasp it,”
Eaker amplified. “But the Others have
minds and powers beyond the grasp of even
myself and my associates, who have studied
and followed and worshipped — yes, wor¬
shipped.” He spoke defiantly, as if to justify
himself to his prisoners. “They have been
here since the beginnings. Perhaps since
before the beginnings. Up on the moun¬
tains they have waited until the Earth is
fit to receive their rule. They vouchsafed
some little tokens of power and aid to the
old Indians. And the earliest Europeans
included some who had the wit to compre¬
hend the value, if not the full implication,
of following their way.”
“You mean, you go up the mountains to
form alliances with them?” demanded Garde¬
stang.
“Up the mountains!” repeated one of the
listeners, in horror that suggested a sac¬
rilege.
“Alliances!” was Eaker’s echo, similarly
aghast. “No, no alliances. We aren’t
worthy of that. We only serve and follow,
a long way behind. Even so, we are ahead
of you. And they deign to descend to us,
be with us as no other spirits or gods have
40
STARTLING STORIES
ever deigned. You will see.”
He broke off. There had been a dull
knocking at the plank door.
“Let them in,” breathed Eaker. “No, wait.
I’ll do that myself.”
He turned to the door and opened it.
Beast-figures stood there, the same sort
that Gardestang had seen briefly. One
moved slowly forward. His eyes were the
green, self-luminous eyes of a night-prowl¬
ing eater of meat.
CHAPTER X
The Others
ATER Gardestang was to remember
that the eyes were intent, fierce, foul—
but empty. They fixed on his, and the light
came green and cold in them, but he had
a sense of nothing behind the light. He
was powerless to show any defense except
to return the stare, as levelly and as fear¬
lessly as possible.
The first eyes to waver were the green
eyes. The head, with its long sharp muzzle,
turned toward Eaker. The muzzle opened,
slowly and somehow creakily, like a door
on rusty hinges. Gardestang saw a dark
maw, fringed about with teeth as white as
little bits of china. A voice came from the
open mouth, in the dull, flat, expression¬
lessness that Gardestang had heard on the
strange speaker-device at Dr. Parr’s.
“You said that you had something to
please us.”
Eaker made a gesture toward the captives,
and his over-manicured hand trembled.
“These,” he ventured, and his voice was
timid and slow, as if he wondered whether
he dared speak. “They are the men who
have opposed us and you. We deliver them,
bound and helpless.”
“That much is good.” The creaky jaw
did not seem to move, but the words of flat
Spanish were clear. “What then? The
machine?”
Eaker bowed his head, as if steadying his
chin on his plump throat. “It does not
run. They broke it.”
From under the loose robe of the beast-
thing stole a paw, at the end of an upper
limb that was like an arm and also like the
fore leg of a dark, hairy beast. The paw
cuffed Eaker’s head with a heavy wooden
clunk. Eaker staggered and whimpered.
Gardestang thought he saw tears in Eaker’s
frightened eyes. The other men of Eaker’s
following also shrank and grew pallid.
“You permitted that,” accused the flat
voice. “The loss of all that value. Done
in a second by enemies suffered to enter
so close to the heart of your enterprise.”
“We caught the enemies,” Eaker answered,
but a gesture of the paw silenced him.
“Three men. Three human bodies. There
are many millions of men, but only the one
machine. What will you do without it?
Where,” and the flat voice grew louder, “will
your weapons get their deadly strength?
How can your servants know your will and
make reports from afar? We can hear of
no excuses or prayers.”
At the word “prayers,” Eaker sank to his
knees.
“Yet the machinery can be repaired,” he
muttered humbly. “Do it this once. Your
wisdom and skill are sufficient.”
Another wooden stroke of the paw felled
Eaker to the floor. The rest of the wor¬
shippers shrank back. The beast-thing spoke
to them.
“Is that woman the sister of the man who
died in the north? Hold her elsewhere.
She may yet serve a purpose.”
Gardestang watched Theolinda being
marched out by another door. The beast-
thing gestured and the bruised Eaker re¬
gained his feet. Humbly he led his followers
from the room. When the last of the cult-
ists were gone, more of the strange wolflike
creatures moved in, slowly and clumisly, as
though they had trouble walking upright.
Close they came, closer. One stood directly
over Gardestang, a misshapen hulk not as
large as an ordinary man. Gardestang caught,
or fancied he caught, an oily, musky odor.
Watching the slow, unsure bending of the
grotesque body, he wondered if it had any
strength. Then he felt his stalwart form
lightly lifted. The creature was doing it
with one hairy paw, as if he weighed no
more than a turnip.
“No you don’t!” Gardestang snarled, filled
with revulsion at the touch of those spongy-
feeling members that might be fingers or
talons. He flexed his muscles to struggle,
and the other paw of the creature took hold
of the rope that ran from his knees to his
neck. A slight twitch shut off his breath.
“Lie still,” the flat voice bade him un¬
necessarily, and he felt himself carried nim¬
bly out of the room, along a dark corridor,
into a place cool and dry. The hold on the
rope relaxed, but he could neither breathe
nor see. Something descended upon his
STRANGERS ON THE HEIGHTS
41
face, slid over his head.
Later, when Gardestang had an oppor¬
tunity to examine this curious device, he
was amazed at its strange construction and
material. The outer part consisted of an
invisible globe which tightened automatically
around the neck, thus confining the life-
giving gasses within. Only by the sense of
touch could this outside envelope be de¬
tected. The inner part was in the shape
of a metal hood, crystal goggles to protect
the eyes and ear phones which enabled him
to hear. The entire contrivance was light
and skillfully constructed.
“Breathe,” his captor bade him. “Oxygen.
If you rebel or make trouble, I will take
it away. This compartment is almost airless
and pressureless, not suitable to support life
of your kind.”
G ARDESTANG’S mind tried to sort out
the things he was hearing. “What
are you talking about?” he managed to say.
“Facts that will be new and surprising to
you. We Others are not like you human
beings.”
“I can understand that,” growled Garde¬
stang. “But you’re like animals I know—
cats playing with mice. You’ve got us.
Why prolong the agony? I’m not going to
be entertaining. Better kill me and get it
over with.”
As he spoke, he reflected on how often
in the past he had thought he had not an¬
other day, or hour, or sometimes not even
another instant, to live. Since a certain
calamity-packed struggle on a tiny fortified
island in the Mediterranean, he had always
reckoned that he was living on borrowed
time. Probably he was lucky to have ex¬
isted this long, even if he was dying in a
manner strange beyond conception. The
flat voice patiently replied.
“That is what your own kind would call
unjust, arbitrary, ill-conceived,” it said.
“Believe me, man, I have better things to
do with my time and energy than cause you
agony or observe your endurance or lack
of it. You have challenged us.”
“It was you who challenged me,” broke
in Gardestang, “and I accepted the chal¬
lenge.”
“You have challenged us,” went on the
flat, patient flow of words, “and you have
been troublesome and irritating. That you
now live and hear my words depends on a
hope that you may be of use and comfort—
no, those are human words and human
thoughts. I don’t want to use you, or com¬
fort myself with you. I want only that you
should divert energy and change your view¬
point.”
“I’ll save you the trouble of explaining,”
said Gardestang suddenly. “You’re dis¬
gusted with Val Eaker and those sad little
fools who follow him. You have no use
for failure. You said so. I heard you,
never mind how. You want me and my
friends to replace him. Don’t deny it.”
“Why should I deny it? You speak the
exact truth. How can you understand and
interpret so well when I cannot reach your
inner thoughts?”
“Reach my thoughts!” sneered Garde¬
stang. “That you can never do.”
“But I can. Your body is helpless. A
certain operation on your nervous tissue,
and I can do more than read your thoughts.
I can direct them, make you do as I think
fit. I can even kill you by manipulation of
your nervous reaction.”
“I’ve seen it done,” Gardestang told him,
“but it won’t happen to me. Before you
would begin such an operation, I’d simply
straighten out my knees and strangle my¬
self. You’d have only my carcass. Big
enough to be awkward, even in Santiago.”
“Perhaps your carcass would not need to
be disposed of. Did I not speak of operation
of bodies, like machines, by remote control?
Some bodies, from which life has apparently
departed still move. You have heard of the
vampire?”
Gardestang had always hated that word,
and the thoughts it brought up. He spat,
and wished he hadn’t, for the oxygen helmet
was confining.
“The walking dead?” he inquired, using
the cliche with all possible disdain and dis¬
gust. “A body crawling out of the grave
at night to suck blood and frighten children?
Is your science responsible for such things?”
“My science approximates them. And
imitations, by my human scholars, bring
about such inferior, creaky makeshifts as the
zombies, which work so clumsily in West
Indian plantations. How would you like to
be one of those, Gardestang?”
Gardestang would not have liked to be
one, but he felt that he had a proper answer
to give. “I feel sure that you can do what
you say, or near to it. But I’d be dead
then. And dead men don’t care.”
“They do not?” The flat voice made the
words slow and rather wistful. “Garde¬
stang, you choose to ignore life after death.
The human soul.”
Gardestang started so violently that he
42
STARTLING STORIES
almost choked himself again. But this time
he had no answer to make. The interro¬
gator went on to amplify his ideas.
“Because there is a soul. There are many
souls. Myriads. You humans who own
them do not know about them. Your bodies
are too evident. But we, we can work and
think more delicately. We can operate in
soul stuff. Try to understand, Gardestang.
I think that you might be able to, though
no human that ever I knew has been able.”
“You are making sport,” Gardestang said
after a moment.
“Am I?” said the voice, seeming to grow
more distant and thin. “Am I? You are
one of the stubborn souls who must be
shown.”
T HE voice grew thinner. So did the air.
Gardestang struggled as much as he
dared in those choking bonds.
“You’re cutting off my breath!” he
gurgled.
“A little. Only a little. As you become
unconscious of your body, you will be aware
of other things. I can show you what is
in my own consciousness, what I know to
be facts. Look now. Comprehend.”
And the darkness was gone, and normal
feeling. Gardestang was no longer aware
of the cutting coils of rope, or the pressure
on his face of the oxygen mask. But he
could see, or feel, or sense somehow, a new
environment.
He knew that there were clouds and mists,
and that he could float among them as if
in the deeps of an ocean. Light from some¬
where, perhaps from a hidden sun, or two
suns, which made prismatic plays of radi¬
ance in the mist. And things moved, shapes
that were clear as crystal in the fogginess.
They were changing shapes. Sometimes
they enlongated and wriggled, like fish or
snakes. Sometimes they sent out streamers
or arms, to perform some sort of studied
action. Their most frequent form was
spherical, and Gardestang was able to reflect
that the bubble is most apt to approximate
point of rest for liquid or solid. As spheres
they could hold a hovering position. Garde¬
stang wondered what they were.
“My kind,” he was told, and he knew that
this was the owner of the flat voice. “Be¬
cause you have demanded to know, and
because I am willing to let you know, you
may understand. We are like this in the
place where we inhabit normally. It is
more difficult for us on your world, but
because we must, we submit to it.” Garde¬
stang felt he could not understand now. He
wondered again, what the shape-changers
did as their life behavior.
“You might call this a city,” he was being
informed, and the scene changed, as if his
own position and viewpoint were shifted.
Here the mist contained a fabric of tun¬
nels and corridors and interwoven, lacy
strands of clearness. The city of the Others
must be unthinkably vast, but it floated in
the atmosphere without effort or support.
Gardestang could not make out the walls
or confines of these tunnels, but they pierced
the fog in all directions, turning and curving
and fusing into each other. The whole
arrangement was roughly spherical, with
windings, forkings, spider-web traceries.
Along the ways moved the shape-changers,
sometimes creeping like amoebas, sometimes
sailing or flying, like leaves that have learned
to ride the storm. Sometimes they lingered,
in pairs or groups, at the chambers that
occurred at crossings or fusings of the pas¬
sages. Deep within the city, Gardestang had
some conception of bigger compartments,
with a great complex stir of motion, perhaps
machines.
“You cannot understand what the city
is made of,” his informant told him. “It is
made of power. Nothing else. You on
this world need solid things to make walls
or floors or parts of an engine. We use
forces. Some few such things you have
become acquainted with—our communica¬
tions, our power-broadcast. I do not know
how best to illustrate the principle.”
“Perhaps like a strong wind that carries
away heavy objects,” ventured Gardestang.
“Or like the rays of light, which can make
things shift position or change chemical
action.”
“Crude similes, very crude, but good. I
see you do have the wit and will to compre¬
hend a little. Better comprehension will
follow.”
The strange vision was darkened. Garde¬
stang was back on the floor, with the oxygen
mask on his face and the bonds on his body.
The voice, flat as ever, spoke. “Don’t be
too mystified. I gave you only some mental
impressions in an effort to help you. It
has been the first time I have been able to
enter your mind.”
“I won’t allow it again!” blazed Garde¬
stang. “I’ll die first. I’m not going on your
slave list. If I feel you cutting my oxygen
again, I’ll straighten out and beat you to it.”
“Too bad,” the Other said, not mourning
very deeply. “I had hopes of you, if hope
STRANGERS ON THE HEIGHTS
4:;
is the word to use. Lie still and think.
Think it over well.”
Silence. Something else was trying to
creep into Gardestang’s mind. He fought
it savagely for a moment, then welcomed
it. The voice of Tommy—no, the thought
of Tommy—Tommy, who made the same
guesses as he on card-symbols, who some¬
times spoke the same things that were in
his mind, who now communicated with him:
“Hold out, Duke,” Tommy was trying to
tell him. “I’m just about able to help.”
CHAPTER XI
Offer Declined
M AKING the sternest of efforts, by re¬
fraining from starting or otherwise
showing that he was aware of anything save
the words and presence of the Other, Garde-
stang concealed what was happening. He
replied to Tommy Gatchell by mental means.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
And back came a second message, driving
into his mind.
“Almost. I fought, got stunned. Ditto
Doc Parr. I’m outside, under guard of
Eakin’s stooges. They don’t know I’m
awake. But I am. I can see you from
where I’m lying.”
“Have you made a decision, as I com¬
manded?” the flat-voiced Other was per¬
sisting.
“Give me time,” begged Gardestang.
“You’ve thrown so many brand-new con¬
tentions at me, and now you insist that I
value them, add them up, and come to a
conclusion.”
“That is good,” approved the Other. “You
are at least considering. You are able, you
are willing, to understand. We make prog¬
ress, you and I.”
Silence again. Relaxing as much as he
dared, Gardestang exerted his mind.
“If you can see me, Tommy, where am I?”
“Hard to explain,” came back at once.
“They have a glassed-in room. You’re in
it with them. Something over your head.”
Another part of Gardestang’s mind pon¬
dered and rationalized. His captor had said
that the compartment was “almost airless
and pressureless.” The Others, then, needed
such a condition for natural life. And his
face was covered by an oxygen mask of
invisible glasslike substance.
Tommy, outside somewhere under inade¬
quate guard, could see.
“One of those werewolves stands beside
you.” More thoughts were being sent to
him. “He talks to you. I can see his mouth
moving. But the rest have—” Tommy
ceased sending for a moment, then—“the
rest have taken their bodies off.”
“Taken their bodies off!”
In his amazement, Gardestang had spoken
aloud.
“Ah,” said his companion smoothly, “your
conceptions are beginning to clarify. You
understand something else about us.”
“They float around,” Tommy was telling
him. “Float like jellyfish.”
“Like jellyfish!” Again Gardestang was
speaking aloud, excitedly. “Yes, I saw them
in that vision! And the body of the wolf-
thing is only a sort of garment or armor
or disguise!”
“It is all three,” informed the voice of
the Other. “Did you think that we could
not adapt ourselves? In this world, where
solid substance seems to be preferred for
activity or power, would we be failures for
the lack of a way to procure and assume
solid substance? Gardestang, knowledge is
trickling through to you. As you say, we
are able to wear mechanized coverings, for
armor and clothing and disguise. The de¬
sign is grotesque to you. Our earliest arti¬
ficers were not well informed about how
creatures of your world look and behave.
But we have kept the appearance, because
it creates awe and respect among your
people.”
“Werewolves,” muttered Gardestang.
“Yes. And demons and dragons and mon¬
sters. Doesn’t it seem simple now? And
are we not being patient with you? But
your time is nearly elapsed. Speak, and
speak favorably, Gardestang. Else you will
be blotted out, and perhaps others will fulfill
the task of human colleagues for us.”
“Hang on, Duke,” Tommy urged him.
“Only a few moments more.”
Gardestang cleared his throat. “You tell
me to speak favorably,” he said. “But if
I did speak favorably, does that mean you’d
immediately accept and trust me? Without
fear of my rebelling?”
“Without fear of your rebelling. Yes.
Because we would at once condition you
so that your mind would be ours. Perhaps
some delicate nerve surgery could do the
trick. Remember, even if you refuse and
die, we can do many things with the body
from which your life will have departed.
But we prefer you alive.”
44
STARTLING STORIES
“And would I be a slave, to be kicked
and abused, like Eaker?”
“No. You are not a lump of Eaker’s
sort. Already you understand more than
he ever dared. You will understand still
more perfectly, with our teaching and con¬
ditioning. As for Eaker, since you scorn
and hate him, you may have the satisfaction
of destroying. I grant you that. I com*
prehend, though I do not share, your human
passions for revenge and conquest.”
“In heaven’s name, what are you trying
to do on this world?” Gardestang demanded.
% BOVE him the hairy being spoke de¬
liberately.
“We seek to know about it, to alter it,
to develop the spirit-stuff and soul-stuff so
far neglected, that we ourselves may thrive."
“Isn’t that conquest?” Gardestang flung
out. “Isn’t that exploitation, and rule, and
slavery, and all the things you say you have
no taste for?”
“You are still short of comprehension.
Such things do not enter our plan. A miner
digs ore that metal may be produced for
physical profit. An astronomer scans the
stars with his telescope that knowledge be
gathered to satisfy active minds. In each
case a certain natural condition is disturbed,
for the ore does not intend to be dug, nor
does the star intend that its mystery be
solved.”
“Lie low, Duke,” Tommy was thinking
somewhere. “I’m going to get you out of
there.”
“You speak without the slightest sympathy
for my world.” Gardestang was speaking
aloud again, trying to hold the attention of
his captor. “Yet you say that you and I
shall understand each other, be allies.”
“Yes, to an extent. And you shall not
come under our plans for this world, but
be an associate and to some degree a sharer
in—”
CRASH!
Whatever Tommy had planned was hap¬
pening.
There was a fanning rush of warm, stuffy
air around Gardestang’s prone bound body.
There was also a loud yelling and commo¬
tion not far away, a shot and another. Then
a second crash. The flat voice of Garde¬
stang’s informer, broken off by the noise,
now emitted a sort of braying cry, and next
moment the din of struggle was everywhere.
Gardestang knew suddenly what to do.
Perhaps his subconscious mind had known
for some time. He tossed his head twice and
three times. The oxygen helmet slipped
partially away. He thrust his face down
toward his knees, and set his teeth into the
cord that ran from them to his neck.
A heavy object like a metal-shod hoof
spurned him—the hoof of the Other. He
rolled over and away. His frantic teeth
drove through the strand. His ankles and
arms were still bound, but he could straight¬
en himself. With an effort he squirmed to
his feet, back to a wall, and at a glance took
in what was happening.
He was in a spacious chamber, sealed at
one end with glass panes. Two of these
were shattered, and the air that had come
into the lair of the Others had wrought
disaster among them. Here and there lay
jellylike mounds, quivering a little, but
shapeless and senseless—creatures destroyed
by the atmosphere they could not abide.
Beyond the broken glass partition a fight
was going on. Tommy Gatchell and Dr.
Parr were winning it. Gardestang saw the
old navy man’s iron hand strike down a
struggling figure. Tommy pistol-whipped
another. Several forms lay on the floor.
One of the survivors ran. In a corner some¬
one crouched, with a slender girl held be¬
fore him as a shield. Eaker—with Theo-
linda!
“I am still alive,” said a flat voice he
recognized.
The beast-form slid toward him. Its
talonlike upper extremities groped toward
him.
“I kept on my body so that I could com¬
municate with you by speech,” said the
beast. “And the atmosphere has not come
to me yet. But you must die.”
Gardestang, bound and unable to set him¬
self for offense or defense, did the only
thing he could think of. He launched his
big body into a diving ball, whipping him¬
self sidewise in midair, as a footballer blocks
or spikes on the field. His flank struck
below the waist of the shaggy monster,
struck as against solid wood. Down they
both fell, and he heard his enemy clang
beneath him. Quickly he rolled away again,
floundered toward the glass.
“You cannot,” the flat voice said. But
Gardestang could. He got to his feet once
more, and thrust himself against the glass.
A jagged point plowed the skin of his fore¬
arm, but he felt his bonds give, and his
arms were free.
As the Other came in he struck hard with
both fists, and grunted with pain. It was
like striking against a metal bulkhead. And
STRANGERS ON THE HEIGHTS
45
then he heard another crash. Parr was
breaking more glass with his artificial hand.
He pushed a pistol through the new hole
and fired.
“You missed,” taunted the Other, but spun
like a top and darted off somewhere.
ARDESTANG lost balance, and fell
heavily outward through the glass-
work. Hands swiftly cast off the bonds on
his legs.
“Fight’s over, Duke,” Tommy was saying.
“We got four of them out here. How many
of those Others bit the dust? Or can you
tell?”
And Theolinda was also beside him, help¬
ing him to his feet.
“Eaker?” yelled Gardestang. “Where is
he?”
Parr jerked his head toward the corner.
“He was hiding behind the lady. Hiding,
that is, from Tommy, who had an empty
pistol. So I picked up a loaded one and
shot a piece out of his head. Eaker’s dead.
Let’s get away from here.”
“Yes, let’s,” agreed Tommy, “but which
way is out?”
When out of immediate danger, they held
a little council. Tommy quickly told his end
of the story.
“As I telegraphed you — or telepathed
you—we fought until they knocked us out.
Apparently the Others left us to revive
under the charge of Eaker and his men,
while they took you into that greenhouse
arrangement yonder.”
“They can’t exist in ordinary atmosphere,”
Gardestang told him.
“I gathered that from your thought-pat-
tern, Duke. Aren’t we the top-flight mind
reading act? But I’m getting ahead of my¬
self. When I woke up, lying on my side,
I had sense enough not to stir or make a
sound. I only opened my eyes, and found
that I was looking into—that.”
He gestured toward a corner. On a little
pedestal rested a globe of icy-clear crystal.
Gardestang stepped close to look.
“A fortune-teller’s gadget!” he exclaimed.
“Why not?” demanded Parr. “They use
such—or did use such—in Eaker’s crowd.
Eaker’s crowd is thinned out just now and
their leader’s gone.”
“I fixed my eyes on it,” resumed Tommy.
“And, almost inside the first moment, I knew
where you were. I sensed that you lay be¬
hind the glass front yonder. I slewed an
eye, and saw that it was perfectly true.
Then I understood. We’re on the same
mental wave-length. We can talk to each
other with our minds.”
“You picked up the conversation?”
“Your side of it, and some of what the
Other said, because it was impressed in your
mind. The globe, phoney or not, helped.
And when I got something of what the
score was, the rest worked out like a movie.
I squirmed one hand free, then the other.
The nearest of Eaker’s men had a gun
sticking out of his hip pocket. I made a
jump and a grab, and then fired my first
shot to smash the glass. For those Others,
it was like letting the water out of an
aquarium of fish.”
WA NE got away,” said Gardestang.
Parr uttered a brief contemptu¬
ous laugh.
“And did he get!” he grunted. “I’d been
getting free, too. My iron fist has its ad¬
vantages. You can’t cut the cords into its
flesh because it hasn’t any flesh. When
Tommy began blasting, I rolled to a gun
one of them dropped and did likewise.
Eaker and his merry men weren’t worth a
good sneeze in anything like a fair fight.
We took over.”
“And Theolinda had been brought in by
Eaker, which made it all cozy,” finished
Tommy.
“Cozy!” repeated Gardestang. He smiled
at the girl. She smiled back. Cozy was
the word, he decided, in the midst of danger
and mystery.
“I can tell you this much about the en¬
emy,” he took up the discussion. “What¬
ever they are, they’re different. They have
values and wishes, but not our values and
wishes. Our meat and our air is their poison.
By the same token, they can poison us in
a hundred rotten ways. I don’t know if
that Other who ran was the last of them,
but if he is we’d better eliminate him.”
“Look!” said Theolinda suddenly.
On the floor rose a little tendril of smoke,
and in its heart bloomed a tongue of flame.
Parr stamped on it with his foot.
“How did—” the doctor began, then
stared. “Another! Look at it! More!”
Half a dozen little spurts of fire crept into
view along the planking, as if evoked by
a burning glass. Parr and Tommy fell back
from it one way, Gardestang and Theolinda
the other. The flames brightened, grew,
slid together into a clump—a sheet, dividing
them.
Gardestang’s shoe clinked against some¬
thing. It was a big revolver, dropped by
46
STARTLING STORIES
one of the dead cult members. Nearby lay
the hat he had worn into the house. He
caught up the revolver and put on the hat
to protect his head from the heat.
“Fight those flames,” he called. “I don’t
know where they come from, but I know
what’s starting them. And I’ll take care
of it.”
“Careful,” warned Theolinda. But Garde-
stang had turned and dodged back through
the hole he had shattered in the glass.
Smoke puffed in after him. The oxygen
mask he also carried along.
On the far side he saw an opening, from
which a door or panel had swung back. His
enemy had fled that way. He ran for it,
and through it. A patter of feet sounded
at his elbow. He glanced around. Theo¬
linda !
“Go back!” he ordered.
For answer, she pointed. Fire followed
them. Already it filled the opening through
which they had come into one of the corri¬
dors. He turned toward the corridor. It
was dim and stuffy, and from its depths
came a quavering hoot.
“I am sorry if my artificial voice mechan¬
ism is not adequate,” said the flat voice he
had already heard too often, “but I was
trying to approximate what you call
laughter.”
Gardestang saw the humpy, hairy shape
backing away before him. He fired with
his revolver.
“Don’t,” warned the Other. “If you kill
me, you can do nothing to escape the fire.”
Gardestang pressed the trigger again. The
beast-shape dodged around an angle of the
corridor, and Gardestang and the girl
moved quickly in pursuit. They found a
wider space, almost a room. Behind them
came the fire.
It seemed to Gardestang that the far wall
was glowing, as if phosphorescent or radi¬
ant. Against it the Other, in his repellant
armor-costume, was silhouetted like a gar¬
goyle thing in a cheap horror picture.
“Will you listen to reason?” it asked him,
more impatiently than otherwise.
“Your reason and mine are too far apart,”
said Gardestang. He dropped the oxygen
helmet and clutched the revolver. “But just
now you said, ‘If you kill me.’ That means
that I can.” Once again he aimed the
pistol.
“Yet if I live, if that bullet does not per¬
forate my armor, I can save you from burn¬
ing. Think, Gardestang. If not for your¬
self, for the woman.”
Gardestang paused. His pistol-muzzle
dropped.
Again the harsh laugh echoed.
“I wish you joy with her. With her and
the fire. It was easy to start by a concen¬
tration of energy rays. Goodby, Garde¬
stang.”
As Gardestang lifted his weapon, the de¬
formed figure stepped backward. It reached
the shimmery surface, and vanished in it,
as an actor making a curtain speech slides
between the folds of a backdrop.
The flames leaped and danced. They
gyrated and tossed out long glowing ten¬
drils, like the gesturing arms of a fren¬
zied crowd. They crept nearer, licking
hungrily at the ancient wood of floor and
walls.
Gardestang swung around. “Keep behind
me,” he told Theolinda. Then he raised his
voice.
“Tommy! Tommy!” he called.
“Here,” came the response, as if from a
mufflled distance. “We found water and are
fighting the fire. Come here.”
“Can’t!” yelled Gardestang, and then no
more. The heat was oppressive, the fire
came nearer. He did not want to breathe
it in. He backed up a step.
“Theolinda, I’ll try to smash through the
wall where it’s still unburnt,” he muttered.
“Game to follow me?”
She did not speak, and he glanced around.
She was not in the passage.
There was no room for her to be there.
They had shrunk away from the flames to¬
ward the shimmer-sheet. His last retreat¬
ing step had forced her toward it. And the
shimmer-sheet worked and rippled, like
waters when something has dropped into
their depths.
She has gone into that strange glistening
surface.
He forgot the fire and faced the shimmer-
sheet. Snatching up the oxygen helmet, he
leaped right into and through the shimmer-
sheet.
CHAPTER XII
The Houses of the Dead
W HAT Gardestang felt he could not
later describe clearly even to him¬
self. He underwent many strange sensa¬
tions—cold, pain, dizziness, faintness and
pain. He experienced a mingling of all these
STRANGERS ON THE HEIGHTS
47
as he pierced the shimmer-sheet.
When he recovered from the first shock,
he became aware that someone or some¬
thing was holding him on his feet. Under
foot was substance, insecure but solid. And
it felt cold, also, too cold for his light gar¬
ments. He looked, and saw a great ledge,
wider than a wide street and several hun¬
dred paces long. At one side rose a wall
of natural rock, to heights that defied the
cloudless blue sky. On the other side, a
precipice fell abruptly into a valley of awe¬
some depths, where groves and fields and
towns shrank almost smaller than the power
of his vision. On the ledge itself stood
buildings of cut stone with no visible mor-
tering. They suggested the cliff-dwellings
of New Mexico and Arizona, and in some
degree the skillful stonework fabrications
of the pre-Pizarro Incas. He judged that
they were old, deserted. But no. Inside
the nearest doorway moved some kind of
furtive shape.
“Steady, Duke.” That was Theolinda’s
voice. It was she who stood beside him,
holding his arm to keep him from slipping
upon the rubble where he had landed. She
was pale, her eyes were wide and bright,
but she did not tremble or shrink. Rico
Challoner’s sister now was proving herself
to be the pluckiest woman Gardestang had
ever known, before, during, or since the war.
“Steady,” she repeated. “And don’t ask
me how we got here. All I know is that
we came scores of miles in a single step,
through that shiny curtain.”
He nodded, watching the shape inside the
dark doorway of the building near them,
on the cliff. The shape slunk out of sight.
“I can give you the beginning of an ex¬
planation,” he said, seeking to match Theo¬
linda’s own nervy assurance. “The Others
speak this much truth—they know and use
all sorts of powers beyond ordinary human
comprehension. They must understand and
use more dimensions than three. That shim¬
mer-sheet spanned space for us some how.
Let us step back.”
He looked around. There was no shim¬
mer-sheet.
“I’ve tried to find it already,” she informed
him. “Perhaps the way back is by some
other means. As for this place, I judge it's
the old mountain village of Serrano.”
“Serrano?” he echoed. “I’ve heard of the
place. Dr. Parr spoke of Serrano. He said
that the Others were worshipped here.”
“The legends speak of devil-worship,”
nodded Theoiinda. “We know now that it
comes to the same thing. Legends, I say,
because nobody has ever been here since
ancient days. The Indians, the Araucanians,
who are Lautoro’s people, had a fort here.
The Spaniards could never find the secret
way up. It was whispered that demons
kept the defenders safe. Now we know
that the whisper was true.”
“Serrano,” said Gardestang again. “Parr
told me it was on the slope of Mount
Cachacamool.”
“Cachacamool?” she answered. “Yes. And
we seem to be high. Yet Serrano is, rela¬
tively speaking, on the lower heights.
Cachacamool? There’s a question as to
whether it is not the tallest peak in the
Americas. Computations differ. Perhaps
the Others have baffled the scientists some¬
how. And the great mountaineers of the
world say that this is a height unscalable,
that Everest in Asia is easy by comparison.”
Gardestang felt like shivering, but
shrugged his shoulders instead. He chose
to go on discussing the situation in the same
detached fashion.
“However we got here, we’re safer than
in Eaker’s burning rabbit-hutch. And there
must be some way of getting back again.”
“Watch out!” gasped Theoiinda.
The figure was back at the door of the
nearby building, in plain view this time.
Gardestang scanned the figure with trained
eyes, as he had looked at other objects
in the past when reconnoitering. He saw
a body as frail and dry and gaunt as basket-
work, on which hung tattered, dust-crum¬
bling draperies. The head, weakly upheld
by a neck like a withered twig, was skull¬
like and frowsy with matted black hair. With¬
ered lips hung slackly away from teeth
as white and dull as squash seeds. The
creature moved into the open.
T HEOLINDA gasped softly, and started
to speak, but no words came. Her cour¬
age, which had sustained her through so
much, was almost exhausted. Gardestang
heard her mutter a prayer to a saint—good
Saint Michael, the overthrower of fiends.
He felt at his hip. The big pistol was there.
He drew it.
“Who are you?” he challenged in Span¬
ish, and raised the weapon.
The loose lips twitched and smacked
soundlessly. From under the swaddling of
sand-colored draperies a scrawny hand crept.
The feet, wrapped in bits of ancient cloth
or leather, propeled the shape toward them.
“Stop there!” commanded Gardestang,
48
STARTLING STORIES
pointing his weapon. The thing hesitated
and blinked. Gardestang could see its eyes,
with no focus or light to them, like snails
dead in their shells. The creature took
another stiff, clumsy stride forward.
“Do not shoot,” Theolinda was begging
beside him. “Ay de mi! The poor thing
has no mind.”
Theolinda spoke the truth. It had no
mind, perhaps no life. It had the appearance
of a big, foul marionette, upheld by a force
and operated by an intelligence outside it¬
self. What had the Other said to him when
he lay captive in that airless room?
“Some bodies from which life has ap¬
parently departed still move.”
And another word had been spoken.
Vampires. Those pariahs even among lost
souls, feared and loathed by all people since
time’s dawn, the Other had spoken of them
as an easy fabrication of his kind’s science.
Vampires were creatures who dealt dread¬
ful wounds and disasters, whose touch was a
curse, against which ordinary valor and wea¬
pons meant nothing. Theolinda was think¬
ing those thoughts, or similar ones.
“Do not shoot,” pleaded the girl. “Lead
is of no avail against it.”
“No?” gritted Gardestang. “Let’s see just
how much good lead a vampire can carry.”
He leveled the pistol and fired two shots,
the last two in the chambers.
The bullets were big and the charges
strong. The withered body jerked and stag¬
gered under their impact. Gardestang
thought it would fall, but it did not. It
closed in. He saw, in the dry dun-colored
brow beneath the matted black hair, the
smooth round hole made by one of his
shots. Both the thin hands were extended
toward him, quivering, hungrily.
“Begone!”
Theolinda moved to Gardestang’s side.
Drawing herself up, she stepped ahead of
him. He tried to catch her and pull her
back, but she shoved his arm away. Her
right hand was at her throat, where some¬
thing hung on a chain. It was a small silver
crucifix. Wrenching it from the chain, she
held it up.
“The old legend,” Gardestang groaned at
her. “Dracula and all that. It won’t work.”
But the dried, dead thing had stopped
abruptly, rocking on its flat-planted feet.
The withered hands lifted slowly, and trem¬
ulously, as if to hide its face. The dull
eyes veiled themselves behind parchment
lids. It turned away its head.
“Begone, in the name of all holy saints,”
Theolinda commanded it. The creature
cowered back. Then it turned and tottered
away toward the hut from which it had come.
Gardestang emitted a low whistle.
“Now I believe everything,” he muttered,
to himself more than to Theolinda. “Not
only vampires and walking dead, but ex¬
orcism! The mere presence of a holy ob¬
ject protects us.”
“How did you learn to do that?” broke in
the flat voice he hated.
The Other had stolen from some build¬
ing, and in the light of day Gardestang had
a clearer view of it than he relished.
He wondered now why he had ever
thought it a living creature. The hairy
thatch that covered it was blatantly artificial
in texture and dye, the joints of arm and
leg creakily mechanical, the teeth in the
open jaws as clumsily fashioned and set
as if it were the work of a bungling taxi¬
dermist. Only the eyes, flashing green and
baleful, had any brightness in them. And
they were empty. A thought began to form
in Gardestang’s mind. It was interrupted
by Theolinda.
“Begone!” she said again, the cross lifted
in her hand.
T HE ugly head gave vent to a grunt of
refusal.
“That will frighten these poor puppets,
for once they were living men and the in¬
stinct of fear still clings to their dim brains,”
the Other told her. “But I do not fear.
I know fear only by study of your kind,
it is not experienced by mine. Crossed lines
may fence me off, their point of intersection
is a danger.” It paused, the false jaws wide
apart in a simulated grin. “You are wise
for human beings, you two. You gather
knowledge of the weakness of my people.
But not sufficient knowledge.”
“I know that air is bad for you,” replied
Gardestang. “And now the cross. Give it
to me, Theolinda.”
Obediently she passed it to him. He re¬
ceived it, standing just a pace behind her.
Next instant she had wilted down to the
rock, moaning as if in exhausted agony.
Gardestang stooped above her, lowering the
hand that held the cross.
“Thank you,” said the Other.
He had a sensation of blinding greenness,
and was felled to his knees beside Theolinda.
It was as if powerful electricity penetrated
and churned every fiber and nerve of his
body. Gasping, he tried to struggle up.
He could not.
STRANGERS ON THE HEIGHTS
49
“Thank you, I say, for taking the crossed
lines away,” he heard the flat voice say.
“First you exposed the girl by drawing the
device back of her. Then yourself, by lower¬
ing it. Now ray eyes can shed light on you,
destroying you both.”
Crossed lines. The cross. The blessed
symbol on which Theolinda pinned her faith
of victory and security was, to the Other,
a mere mathematical diagram, but, some¬
how, that diagram was poison and danger
to it. Crossed lines! Two of them, each
extending to infinity in opposite directions,
joining midway at right angles, their junc¬
ture symbolized by this holy silver jewel.
His hand, throbbing to the marrow of its
bones, still clung to the cross. Somehow
he lifted it, though it weighed tons, lifted
it before himself and Theolinda.
At once he could stand. Shaken and
dazed, yet he could stand. The eyes of the
Other gleamed green, but they could not
drown him in their rays.
“Crossed lines!” growled Gardestang. “I’ll
cross-line you!”
He moved forward, lightly and gingerly,
like a boxer advancing to attack. The Other
lifted its ugly clumsy-pointed arms.
“Stay back,” it cried. The cry was a
plea, not a warning.
On and on advanced Gardestang. Back
and back gave the Other. Its determination
seemed to ebb. It turned and ran.
He had the good sense not to pursue too
closely. He paused at the door of the hut
where the dead shape had lurked, and just in
time, for the withered thing was crouched
within, ready to jump at him. It floundered
out. He threw forth a hand in defense, the
hand with the cross. The dried body fell
at his feet, like a scarecrow let loose from
its support.
“I told you that it was dead,” said Theo¬
linda in his ear. She had kept pace with
him, and now gazed fearfully at the slack
bundle of bones and skin. “See, you touched
its face. The mark of the cross is there,
as though burnt into it!”
The Other had gained a point against the
upward face of rock. Pits or notches were
chiselled there, and it began to climb.
“I am not trapped,” it flung over its shoul¬
der. “You think I am forced to stay and
face your weapon. No! 1 can yet balk
you, even while contending with the Others
above!”
Scrambling upward like a monkey, it
gained a veiny crack, and swarmed out of
sight to the great slopes above.
Gardestang faced Theolinda. Her face
was paler than before, and she swayed
wearily toward him. He caught her in one
arm and held her close, the other hand still
fending toward the Other with the cross it
held.
Some person cleared his throat behind
him.
“Always look around before you hug a
girl, Duke,” Tommy was rallying him. “Did
you think the Doc and I were going to stay
away forever?”
CHAPTER XIII
The Mountain Unscalable
J UST as Gardestang and Theolinda had
come out of nowhere to that lofty shelf,
so had Gatchell and Dr. Parr arrived. The
tip of Dr. Parr’s nose was sooty and his
shoes appeared crusted with ashes. Tommy
had quite a bruise on the angle of his jaw
and a cut over one eye, while his right sleeve
was torn from cuff to elbow. With them,
quite clean and calm, was Lautoro, his dark
gaze grateful as he found Theolinda.
They told their story quickly.
Tommy and Parr had gained open air
just as fire-fighting apparatus came clanging
through the streets of Santiago and into
the unsavory alley where Eaker’s den had
its outer doors. There had been no chance
of saving that tinder-timbered rookery, and
it had taken hard work and much water to
protect adjoining buildings. Providentially,
the dead bodies in the burning rooms were
too damaged to show any bullet or knife
wounds, else Tommy and Parr might have
had questions to answer. As it was, they
found Lautoro at the edge of the watching
crowd. He was anxious about them and
the Senorita Theolinda. The three, dogging
the heels of firemen, came to the room of the
shimmer-sheet, where the flames had been
drowned. And they had come through.
“I’d picked up your thoughts, so knew
all about the shimmer-sheet,” Tommy ex¬
plained to Gardestang. “After you went
into it, I couldn’t tune you in any more.
For a moment I thought you were dead, you
and Theolinda. But since the Other had
gone through without turning one of his
artificial hairs, I knew it would be safe for
me.”
“Don’t be guided by things like that,
Tommy,” Gardestang warned him. “It
50
STARTLING STORIES
worked all right this time, but they can
handle plenty of things that we can’t On
the other hand, they can be driven off by
things that bother us.”
He told about the crucifix, which he had
given back to Theolinda.
‘‘The cross is an old symbol of truth and
strength,” put in Dr. Parr. “Not only in
Christianity, either. The Egyptians had it.
Also the Aztecs made and worshipped
crosses, as did the Mayas.”
“And my people, the Araucanians,” sup¬
plied Lautoro, gazing about him. “Here,
on Serrano, demons have held out for many
lifetimes. Had the Spaniards come against
them with crosses rather than swords and
cannon, they would have cleansed the moun¬
tains.”
“And crossed lines drive back the Others,”
said Tommy.
“The crossed lines, and the spiritual mean¬
ing of them,” amplified Parr. “Remember
how solid they find spiritual stuff. I’ll ven¬
ture that all the crosses in the world won’t
help unless you believe.”
“I believe,” said Gardestang, and Theo¬
linda smiled at him.
They walked into the hut-door where lay
the still, musty figure. Dr. Parr remarked
professionally that the body must have been
dead for many months. Gardestang noticed,
as he had not noticed before, that it had
begun to rot blackly. Even the unemotional
Lautoro goggled.
“One of the lost souls I have heard tell
of,” he muttered, crossing himself.
“Are there any more?” asked Tommy,
and faced toward the huts beyond.
Gardestang put a hand on his arm. “Care¬
ful. I wouldn’t poke around without pro¬
tection.”
Theolinda held out the crucifix, but
Tommy shook his head.
“Thanks, I can manage. Look here.”
He took a silver pencil from his pocket,
and unscrewed it into two lengths. “Any¬
body got a string or cord?” he asked, and
then supplied himself by raveling off some
thread from his torn sleeve. He lashed
the smaller length of silver across the greater,
and held it up.
“Crossed lines,” he announced. “And
faith or spirit or determination to go with
it. I’ll guarantee that. Come on, Duke.
Let’s prowl the place.”
“You others stick here,” advised Garde¬
stang. “Theolinda’s cross will protect you.”
“And mine,” added Lautoro, drawing from
under his shirt his own crucifix.
“We’ll keep our eyes peeled,” promised
Dr. Parr.
C GARDESTANG and Tommy paced off
Palong the shelf, side by side. Tommy
carried the makeshift cross in his left hand,
his revolver in his right. Gardestang, who
knew how futile a revolver could be, went
empty-handed and more gingerly than he
cared to admit.
The second hut looked like the first from
without, anciently and solidly made of un¬
mortared stones. It had once had a door
of some sort, basketwork or slabs, but this
had fallen away to rotten fragments. Tommy
unhesitatingly stuck his head inside.
“Got a light, Duke?" he called, and Gar¬
destang passed him a match. He struck
it. “Mmmm. Another corpse."
Gardestang, too, peered into an interior
that was windowless and dim and empty.
It had a hard floor of rock and dirt, and
reminded Gardestang of the inside of an
old, disused silo. Against one wall of stones
huddled a mummy-like form that seemed to
have collapsed while sitting, its bony face
down on slightly updrawn knees. Its skin
was as dry and sere as old corn husks.
“Not dead,” pronounced Gardestang at
once. “It’s only out of action, waiting for
the will of the Other. Touch it with your
cross, Tommy. That’s it. See the mark
on its cheek where you touched it. Like a
brand. Any doubt now that it’s dead?”
There was none. They left hurriedly, and
explored the other huts without so much
aplomb. Five or six of them proved to
have quiet, dry bodies within. Tommy
touched each with the cross. Finally they
returned to where their companions waited.
“We scuppered them all,” announced
Tommy. “Rotten, isn’t it? In more ways
than one. I mean, a corpse being made
to trot around and haunt a little pocket
on a mountain-side. I swear that one or
two of them looked peaceful and grateful
after I’d laid the cross on their faces.”
“Servants of the demons," said Lautoro.
“They sold themselves, for power to hold
this place against all enemies. Who does
not know that, when one sells himself to
evil, he must sell also his hope of rest after
death?” And he signed the cross upon his
broad chest.
“As to that,” said Dr. Parr, “I’m not
demonologist enough to make a confident
answer. But if they didn’t rest, how do
you account for those?”
And he nodded toward a row of rubbly
STRANGERS ON THE HEIGHTS
51
mounds against the rocky wall of the shelf,
each as long as a human body.
“Graves, I’d say,” he went on. “Old ones.
And undisturbed. Probably the bodies that
went into them are still there.”
“As the stories go, only the chiefs of these
people had traffic with demons,” said Theo¬
linda.
The Indian nodded. “Es verdad. It is
true. Only the chiefs. Those who sleep
in their graves, the followers and servants,
could die naturally when their time was
come. But the chiefs,” and he gazed at the
crumpled mass at the nearest hut-door,
“lived on, as we have seen. One by one,
as they came to the day appointed for death,
they became demons themselves.”
Tommy whistled long and thoughtfully.
“I’ve just been thinking. How must it have
been to the last living person on this ledge
—I mean the last one naturally alive—with
all his old fellow-chiefs still walking and
pretending to be alive with him?”
“Don’t,” begged Theolinda. Nothing more
was said on the subject.
Lautoro had gathered some ancient frag¬
ments of the rotten doors to the huts, and
made a fire. The three sat down on some
boulders. Gardestang reflected that he was
a trifle hungry. Tommy, sitting beside him,
squinted sidelong.
“Have a bit of chocolate bar?” he sug¬
gested, and reached into his pocket.
“Still reading my mind,” grinned Gardes¬
tang. “Give it to Theolinda. We can’t tune
in on her, but she must be famished.”
Tommy held out the bar to the girl. She
made an effort at polite refusal, then ate
the offering with eager gratitude. Dr. Parr
scratched his chin with the flawed tips of his
artificial fingers.
“It comes to this,” he summed up, like a
lawyer marshaling evidence. “The head¬
quarters of that cult run by Eaker, where
we thought the main nest of the trouble
would be found and wrecked, was really
only a vestibule. It led to this place—
another vestibule. Because the Other, Duke
says, climbed up out of sight. What’s be¬
yond?”
JfflJOR a moment Gardestang stared at the
JD point where the enemy had mounted
upward. “I’m going to find out,” he said.
“Cachacamool is a mountain unscalable,”
reminded Theolinda softly. But Gardestang
shook his head.
“Not from ihis point, apparently. The
Other could climb, and so shali I.”
“And so shall I,” echoed Tommy.
“You can’t,” Gardestang objected. “There
must be airlessness, or something near air¬
lessness, up there for that Other to make
its lair in. And I’m the only one with this
gadget.”
He held up the oxygen helmet, which still
hung to his neck.
“I’ll draw straws with you for it,” sug¬
gested Tommy, his bold eyes almost hungry
for adventure.
“You’ll do nothing of the sort. Possession
is nine points in law, even up here on this
cliff. The rest of you had better wait here
for me. Wait a little while, and study a
way to get back down. I’m going up.”
Parr nodded agreement. “We’ll wait.
There’s some rubbish around here, enough
to make us a fire. And we can shelter in
one of these huts, one that doesn’t have a
vampire in it. See you later, son.”
Lautoro grunted, and began to crawl out
of his coat.
“Wear this,” he urged. “It is heavier
than yours, and cold lurks above. And my
boots. They will be large, but stout and
warm.”
“Wear this, too,” said Theolinda.
She held out the crucifix. The broken
chain she had knotted together again. Her
hands trembled, her eyes pleaded.
Gardestang demurred. “It is for your pro¬
tection.”
“But Lautoro wears a crucifix, and Tommy
has made one. That should be enough for
us. Come, take it.”
She threw the loop of the chain over
his head and around his neck. Her hands
dropped to his shoulders. He bent swiftly
and kissed her, and her lips were warm for
all the chill in the air around them.
“God and the angels guard you,” she
whispered, so softly that he had to strain
his ears to hear.
Tommy was offering his pistol, butt fore¬
most. “It’s smaller than that old mutton-
leg you’re carrying, but it’s fully loaded,” he
pointed out, and Gardestang made the ex¬
change.
Parr grinned and put his hand to his
hip-pocket. “Since everybody’s giving you
going-away presents, I’ll follow the prece¬
dent.” He brought out a little flask. “Brandy,
not more than a few ounces. But isn’t that
standard equipment for mountain-climbing?”
“I doubt if I’ll meet any Saint Bernard
dogs up yonder,” said Gardestang. “Thank
you, sir.”
Dressed in Lautoro's coat and boot:;, he
52
STARTLING STORIES
shook hands all around. Then he strode
to the upward row of notches and began
to climb. It was precarious business, and
he did not dare look down until he had
reached the higher crack in the rock, which
he could scale like a sweep in a chimney.
Then, when he glanced backward, the ledge
and those upon it were hidden from sight.
But in his mind was the face of Theolinda,
clear as though she had come with him.
“Good luck!” That was Tommy’s thought,
coming to him.
He scrambled up to the slope, steep but
negotiable. Above him was Mount Cachaca-
mool, height piled upon height, and at its
top the very sky itself.
CHAPTER XIV
The Climb and the Combat
F OR the first few yards it was like scram¬
bling up the pitch of a roof to Gardes-
tang. The next half mile seemed like nego¬
tiating a down-sloping sheet of ice, for the
rock became steeper and glassy-smooth.
Gardestang’s first upward squirming on this
new stretch was almost fatal, for he lost
hold and slipped back. He had a brief
vision of a downward slide, a fall, and a
bone-crushing impact on the shelf far be¬
low. in full view of his friends. Then his
clutching hand found a projecting knob,
which held.
He started upward again, this time with
more calculating determination.
Into the waistband of his trousers was
stuck the stout-bladed knife he had cap¬
tured in his fight with the cult members.
Apparently the Other had been scornful of
human weapons for Gardestang had been al¬
lowed to keep it. He drew the weapon and
clamped it in his teeth. Then he dragged
himself up the smoothness again for a little
way and lay flat while he gouged a pit in
the rock, which was not too hard for carv¬
ing. This gave him a hand-hold and then
a point of purchase for his toe while he
dug another at body’s length above.
Beyond that, he was able to take advantage
of a slight unevenness, a sort of wrinkle
that angled up and would give him frictional
anchor for some yards. Reaching the high¬
est point, he dug more pits with his knife
and gained a new fault in the smooth face.
And so on and on, until his every muscle
ached and his lungs panted for the thin air.
At length he reached a ledge, not wider
than his body but long and mounting up¬
ward. There he lay at full length, wheezing
and gazing up at the sun which hung al¬
most at zenith. After a moment he brought
out Dr. Parr’s brandy flask and took a sip,
then rose to his feet.
“Gardestang," the flat voice hailed him
from somewhere above. “Do you honestly
think that you can drive me upward for¬
ever? Do you think it is not cheaper to
kill you than to face the Others above?”
The Others above 1 This strange being
had spoken that phrase before, and had
spoken then of “contending” with them.
But that had been on the ledge of Serrano,
a good distance downward. Now it threat¬
ened to kill him, rather than face the “Others
above”—its own kind and yet, seemingly,
enemies.
“I mean what I say, Gardestang,” con¬
tinued the creature. "Listen to me. Be a
rational being. You have shown strength,
wisdom, courage. I might admire you, if
I were of a race that knew how to admire.
You and I could make a most wholesome
alliance. So far you have rejected it. Now,
I say freely, return in peace and safety to
your own kind. I will torment you no more.”
Gardestang was able to speak by now.
“You’re a renegade,” he said, with his first
good breath. “You have come down from
the heights where your race lives, and have
mingled and meddled with affairs below.
You and your fellow-renegades, who per¬
ished down there in Santiago because they
came up against better fighters than they.’’
“It was a piece of fortune,” grumbled
the Other.
“Fortune favors the brave," Gardestang
told him. "That’s a human proverb. If
you don’t understand fear, you don’t under¬
stand bravery. Among the worst specimens
of humanity you have seemed terrible and
powerful, but you yourself don’t dare face
your own people above."
All this was more than half guesswork,
but the long moments of silence that fol¬
lowed his charge convinced him that it was
true. He had a new sense of confidence and
determination.
“So far,” he cried, “I’ve been victorious.
I've refused to be frightened back, and I’ve
penetrated into your territory. And I’ve
made you run. No, I won’t accept any terms
from you. Since I’ve chased you this far,
I’ll chase you the rest of the way. That’s
fair enough warning.”
“One word more, Gardestang,” came the
STRANGERS ON THE HEIGHTS
53
hasty response. “Up to now you have been
in your own natural habitat, and I have
labored under disadvantages. Up here, where
the air thins, I will thrive and you grow faint.
Be warned. Go back.”
“If you were sure of victory, you’d give
me no such a chance,” Gardestang laughed
in turn. “You’d destroy me without com¬
punction. Well, I warn you in turn, be
ready for battle!”
And he started up the narrow ledge.
There was a noise above, like the sudden
roll of angry thunder. A boulder came roll¬
ing down, larger than a washtub and swifter
than a runaway horse. Gardestang quickly
gauged its speed. As it bore down, he
leaped high up the steep inner face that
bounded the ledge. Digging his fingers into
a crack, he clung there, just out of the path
of the boulder as it bounded away beyond
and beneath him. He hoped it would not
crush anyone as it caromed down the lower
slopes of the mountain, and he dropped back
to the runway he had quitted.
“Now I know where you are,” he shouted,
and went up at a swift trot.
At a point above him, the ledge became
a little ravine between two high masses of
rock. Gardestang charged full at this dimmed
opening, then on impulse veered to one side.
His impulse was a good one. Another
boulder hove into sight and came whirling
past. As it thundered along the ledge, Gar¬
destang scrambled up one of the rock-masses.
From its top he could see the hairy crooked
shape of the Other, still poised and tense
after hurling potential death upon him.
“Stone-age warfare,” Gardestang mocked,
and threw himself down, as often he had
hurled his big, brawny body upon ambushed
enemies in commando actions. He struck
with the knife.
But this was no unsuspecting German
lump, no undersized Japanese. Gardestang
fell full upon its hunched shoulders and re¬
bounded from them as from the rock itself.
His knife struck and snapped off, whether
on the thing’s back or on a stone, Gardes¬
tang was never to know. Before he could
gather his legs under him and rise, the Other
had pivoted and rushed.
“Said I not that I was armored?” it
screamed at him.
S TILL prone at the bottom of the little
ravine, Gardestang shot out both his
legs. He hooked a toe behind a hairy heel
as it came in reach and drove his other
foot, heavy in Lautoro’s boot, at the knee-
joint. If it could not be damaged, it could
be overbalanced. Down it slammed, with
a clang like a falling stove. Gardestang
whipped his own body upon it, darting both
hands for the throat. His thumbs, schooled
for such business, probed for the carotid
arteries.
But the neck, as his fingers quested
through the bristly thatch, was as round and
unyielding as a length of four inch sewer
pipe. Gardestang’s attack had been only
habitual, and he shifted his hands to seize
the wrists of the talon-like paws that flashed
up at him. He drove his knee into the point
where a stomach-pit should be, and there,
too, was no yielding. In his grip the wrists
moved and flopped. Under the false hide
they seemed to telescope and turn as if on
sleeve joints. And they were too strong for
him. Despite all the effort he poured into
his own arms and hands, they shoved up¬
ward and closer to his own throat, his un¬
armored throat that could be choked, torn,
damaged.
But at the moment of touching, the Other
voiced a wild whimper and snatched its
claws back. Gardestang’s neckband had
come open, and into view had fallen Theo-
linda’s crucifix on its knotted chain.
“Crossed lines!” The flat voice seemed
actually to stammer. By a sudden surging
effort, the misshapen form bucked Gardes¬
tang clear. They were both up at the same
moment, glaring into each other’s eyes.
Now Gardestang saw two globes of glass,
and within them was not life but a strange
glowing liquid—the seat of those rays that
could strike down and destroy. He dodged
back and away from a sudden rush, and
drew Tommy’s pistol. He fired full into one
of the globes.
“No use!” snarled the Other. “I do not
need them to see you!”
It sidled away, as if to attack from a
point where it did not have to face the
cross. Gardestang pistol-whipped it, hard
enough to knock down a mule. It only
swayed, and clutched him in its arms from
the side. The embrace made his ribs creak
and buckle. The great jaws opened, as if
to crunch his shoulder.
Gardestang drove bis hand, pistol and all,
into the yawning crater of the mouth, and
fired twice.
The Other let go and sprang back. It
sagged for a moment against a projecting
rock, seemed to recover, and ran into the
darkness behind the gulley.
Gardestang tore after it, and found himself
54
STARTLING STORIES
blinking at the mouth of a cave, bare and
stuffy. He was alone. “Where are you?”
he yelled, almost hysterically. “Don’t tell
me that you’ve found out all about human
fear and how to feel it!”
No answer.
Then he could see where it had gone. A
shimmer-sheet, a small one, no more in
dimensions than the transom of a window,
glittered in a remote corner.
Gardestang walked toward it. His free
hand caught Theolinda’s cross. Remember¬
ing tales of knights against devils, and re¬
membering Theolinda’s, too, he lifted and
kissed it. Then he lowered his head and
dived through the shimmer-sheet.
For a moment he was choking as he strug¬
gled, groped, fought aimlessly with his hands
for air. Then remembering, he snatched for
the oxygen helmet, found it still slung to
his neck, and pulled it over his head.
It was an invisible globe-shaped device,
with an oblong object like a cake of soap
that evidently generated oxygen. Gardes¬
tang had little time to study it, and had
classified it as another wonderful manufac¬
ture of the Others or of their human cultists
under direction. He was able to breathe
as soon as it was upon his head.
H E WAS still on the mountain, surely
on Cachacamool, tallest of Western
peaks, for around him in the blue distance,
were many other peaks, all far lower than
the point where he now stood. As for the
valleys, they were sunk into depths as into
misty waters, and he could make out nothing.
He had landed on his feet at the mouth
of a shallow pit, lined with metals of various
kinds.
He scrambled forth, and saw that around
him were sharp-angled boulders and faces
of rock, curving away to help make the
mighty brow of the mountain. Not far
above was the summit itself. Gardestang
knew how deceiving a height can be when
you aspire to it, yet he judged that he could
climb to the apex of that cone. It had
been a volcano once, he thought, and its
ancient crater was full of whiteness, probably
the snow of miflenia.
For the rest, he was bitterly cold, and
would have been cold in triple fur. Sun¬
light helped a little as he emerged into
it. He stamped, beat his arms across his
chest, and breathed deeply of the oxygen
gendered within his helmet.
“Gardestang,” the flat voice addressed him,
from no further away than a whisper could
carry.
He gazed in that direction, and there was
the Other, squatting beast-like on a little
chunk of rock, behind and beneath a larger
boulder.
“Duck low, duck low, Gardestang,” it bade
him. “They have no eyes, but they have
what you would define as awareness. Stay
behind and beneath rocks, or from the height
they will know that we are here, and destroy
us both.”
“You mean, Others like yourself?”
“No. Others not like myself.”
Gardestang shook his head inside its hel¬
met. All this was to him as a dream. He
felt exalted, and danger seemed nothing.
“I prefer to stay in the sun,” he said.
“It’s warm, and my flesh needs warmth.
What are you plotting against me?”
The jaws of the abhorrent vulpine mask
opened, and a sigh made itself heard, a sigh
that might have been uttered by a weary and
resigned human being.
“You have led me to so much understand¬
ing of humanity, Gardestang, but you can¬
not understand me. I have no guile or de¬
ceit, except of the clumsiest. If my human
tools below learned but little of science from
me, and were inept at that, so was I far
inferior to them in misdirection. I was able
to out-think them only because their minds
were open to me, as yours has not been.
Think back, Gardestang. Have I once been
able to conceal my decisions or viewpoints
from you?”
It was speaking truth, Gardestang de¬
cided. All through the contest he had been
able to weigh and read the thing’s motives.
It had prattled its plans away, like a child.
And now it hid behind a rock and seemed
to whimper. Not much of the ruthless, cal¬
culating experimenter with humanity now
remained.
“You still wear your armor,” he said.
“Yes. That last assault of yours pierced
a weak inner part. I had to flee up here,
quickly. I wear the thing only that I may
communicate with you.”
“And perhaps fight me,” finished Gardes¬
tang for it.
“And perhaps fight you.” The wolf-head
wagged rather sadly. “But a fight now would
be on other terms than those that obtained
a moment ago. To puncture my armor
would not destroy me, up here where the
air is thin and endurable. But to puncture
yours—that bag that brings oxygen to your
lungs—would be fatal to you. Do not for¬
get that.”
STRANGERS ON THE HEIGHTS
55
Gardestang peered up toward the summit,
and could see nothing.
“What if the things you fear are not
there?” he demanded. “If they do exist,
they are invisible. I don’t fear invisible
things.”
“You lie. All men fear the things they
cannot see or define. That has been a source
of my power, and the power of my as¬
sociates as we ventured among men.”
“I don’t fear them,” repeated Gardestang.
“Show me a definite danger, and I’ll recog¬
nize and respect it. But concerning sus¬
picions and legends, they’re for the sorry
little worms you dealt with. Eaker and men
like him.”
“All men fear us,” insisted the Other.
“From the dim beginnings of the human
race they have feared.”
T HE American made a gesture of scorn.
“Men have put away those fears, and
called them superstitions. Only a small part
of civilized humanity puts any faith in you
or what you can do. Your worshippers
are despised and laughed at. There’s a word
we have for them. Crackpot.”
“Crackpot,” repeated the Other. “The
men I knew never used that word.”
“Because they hated it. They were
mocked with it too often.”
“The truth was known by Eaker,” said
the Other, lolling against its protecting
boulder. “It was known by many secret
cults of worship and wisdom and power.
Those whom you call civilized, wise and in¬
fluential, they were wrong to disregard us.
For the knowledge of us is truth.”
“I wonder if it is,” said Gardestang.
The long jaws opened, and shut again.
The Other fell into one of its abashed
silences.
“Yes, I wonder if it is,” Gardestang re¬
peated. “If you aren’t a sort of illusion,
cooked up and made plausible by many
distorted minds believing in you, what can
you be?”
“If I’m not real,” broke in the Other, “why
do I make myself so plain to you?”
“Because I have you in mind. But I
shall put you out of my mind. I shall
destroy you.”
“You can’t,” protested the Other.
“I can, and you know it.”
Gardestang put his hand to his throat
and caught hold of the cross. He twitched
the chain from his neck. He moved forward.
The creature rose to its feet. It retreated
into the open. He followed. A quick jump
would bring him within arm’s reach, he could
jam his hand and the cross it held inside
that sagging mouth, touch what was inside.
But the Other lifted a paw, and in that paw
was a round, jagged stone the size of a
baseball.
Gardestang ducked, not quite quickly
enough. The stone hurtled, and rang against
his helmeted head like the great clang of a
bell. He went down. His head jangled and
threw off mighty waves and ripples of pain,
that must be swelling out through all the
world, like waves of light or sound. But
Gardestang clung to his wits, by the sheer
refusal to let them go. He got up.
The ugly deformed thing was upon him in
a rush, its metal-hard arms around him. He
struck at it with his hand, and the hand was
empty.
“Dropped it, you dropped it,” came huskily
between the fangs. “And you—I’ll kill you
now.”
Green light from one glass-globe eye
poured upon him in sickening intensity. The
two strained, tugged, grappled, and went
down, Gardestang underneath. The beast-
thing’s body lay upon him as heavy as a
collapsed house. He caught its wrists and
fought them back from his face. As before,
he was forced to realize that they were
stronger than his own grip. Inch by inch
they forced closer to him, closer.
“If I wrench that helmet off,” grunted the
Other, “you’ll die. And I’ll go back down,
without you to stop me. If I beat you, I
can beat your friends. And among man¬
kind are those who will serve me and
worship me.”
Gardestang did not speak or struggle. All
the strength he could summon was concen¬
trated to keep the talons from him. He
glared upward through the lenses of his
helmet.
The green ray was off. Blotches over¬
head. A smear on the glass, a dazzled blur¬
ring of his eyes, a cloud in heaven?
No.
Overhead moved a thing like a puff of
smoke, but smoke confined and ordered. It
shifted shape, but with consciousness and
intent. Such things Gardestang had seen, in
a vision.
“I’ll kill you,” the Other promised yet
again, and suddenly glanced upward, too.
It snatched its wrists from him and leaped
away. It said nothing, made no effort. It
drew itself up, inside that abhorrent hairy
rind.
The air above was full of shape-changers.
56
STARTLING STORIES
From one came a pale, clear ray of light,
thin as a pencil.
The Other in the beast-armor tried to
run then, but it had not the time.
The ray drove right through it. From a
shape-changer in an opposition position
sprang another ray. They met and crossed
inside the thing, crossed at right angles for
a single moment. Crossed lines. The single
moment was enough.
The semblance of the beast-thing dropped
limp and empty as a flayed skin. Whatever
had made it swell and move was gone.
Then the shape-changers drew down
around Gardestang like huge hovering
pigeons.
CHAPTER XV
The Pact
OW Gardestang’s first effort was to
find and lift up the crucifix given him
by Theolinda. But the cloud beings spoke
softly.
“We have no reason to beware of that,”
they said to Gardestang.
He could hear them, could feel their mes¬
sage, could receive it in his mind as he had
received Tommy’s thoughts. In all, it was
a plain impact upon his personality. He
was aware of what they told, and now they
were revealing more!
“None of us has erred. Crossed lines
cannot destroy us.”
“They cannot destroy me, either,” said
Gardestang stoutly, though he felt too weak
to rise.
“Because you, too, have not erred against
the commandments of your kind. You are a
true specimen of what you should be. But
the one we destroyed was not true to his
race. He was disobedient, rebellious, am¬
bitious. He was not of substance, but sub¬
stance was his study and occupation. He
went against right rules. Crossed lines,
therefore, destroyed him.”
A cross against evil, thought Gardestang.
Truth in the most ancient belief.
“What things are you?” he asked. “How
do you live on this mountaintop ?”
“Where else to live on your world, whose
lower levels are poisoned with oxygen?”
“My world,” repeated Gardestang. “You
would have me think that you yourselves
do not belong here.”
“Some day we may belong here. We did
belong elsewhere.”
“Another planet?” He started up from
the ground. “Which planet?”
“We come from—”
“Mars? Jupiter? Tell me!”
“From— We come from— Your mind
cannot receive the answer.”
Gardestang gazed at the peak above.
“How do you live?” he asked again. “I
see no shelters.”
“We need no shelters of substance, for we
are not of substance.”
“What about machines?” pursued Garde¬
stang. “The one you killed had many strange
machines in the lands below, that had power
to serve or hurt beyond anything we knew.”
“Forbidden. We have long turned from
such things. The making and using of them
will cause evil and the going against nature.
We leave machines to your sort, for you are
of substance. We are concerned with spirit
things.”
“Do you mean,” said Gardestang, “that
the Others I met and fought below were all
renegades and rebels? They said as much.
But in what way? If you come here from
somewhere else, what do you do on my
world?”
Long silence among the shape-changers
that hovered around him. He was reminded
of the beast-thing Other and its abashments.
He had time to reflect that these were of
a higher order than his enemy, who could not
read his mind.
“We seek to know,” at last came the
answer.
“Know what? The size and construction
and nature of this world? The doings of
its people? What?”
“To know the cause. But again you can¬
not understand.” A pause. “Perhaps you
will learn later, for we wish more communi¬
cation with you. Never before has one of
this world’s creatures come to us.”
“You have come to them,” reminded
Gardestang.
“No. Not the true ones of us. Renegades
debased themselves and forgot their true
quest in the pursuit of ancient falsities—
power, possessions, conquest.”
“Am I going against my nature in coming
to you?” asked Gardestang.
“No, for you remain true to your nature.
And this is your world, even this mountain
top. You have rights here, but we do not
have right down there.”
“What is the true quest you speak of?"
“It is— You see? You cannot compre¬
hend.”
STRANGERS ON THE HEIGHTS
57
“No,” and Gardestang shook his head dole¬
fully in his helmet, to denote agreement.
“Now tell us the nature of your own
world,” came the plea.
ARDESTANG drew a deep breath.
“Where to begin? Shall I tell of cities,
machines, transportations, governments?”
“None of those. The spirits of your world.
Are there others of spirit like yourself?”
“Very many,” said Gardestang. “Wiser
and stronger and better. Far down this
mountain wait four who are like me. And
countless numbers in other places.”
“Yet there are many more with small, de¬
ceitful, evil souls. Why?”
“Because creatures of my race differ, one
from another. We have renegades and rebels
as you do.”
“What has been the greatest happening
to souls on this world?” rose a new query.
“I cannot tell,” Gardestang replied. “But
the greatest happening to my own soul came
as a result of a war.”
“War? War?”
“A struggle between many creatures div¬
ided into two sides. Machines and danger¬
ous chemical compounds and bodily strength
and wits are turned against each other.”
“Why?” came the instant demand.
“Why?”
“Because a few of my race wanted power
over all. I find it hard to explain, as you find
it hard to explain to me your own nature
and impulse. But as to the war, I was one
of those who fought in it. Many were killed,
and many others were damaged, both in the
body, which my kind considers all, and in
the soul, which your kind considers beyond
price. It happened that I came away fear¬
ing nothing, and hoping only to find things
that would be worth my attention.”
“And you found them?”
“Two. One is this meeting with you.
Like you, I wish to know. But you might
not understand what, either. The other was
a meeting with a woman of my own race,
whose courage and wish to know are as
great as mine, and greater.”
To think of Theolinda made him warm
again.
“Bring her,” insisted the shape-changers
“Bring her. We shall learn from you both."
“Learn what?”
“Learn— There! You see? Once again
we cannot explain. But in time to come
it may be made understandable to you.”
Gardestang faced down the mountain.
“After this, I cannot go away or forget
what happened. I shall come to you again.”
“With the woman, the woman?”
“Yes, if she wishes to come, and she will
wish it. But now I must return. My body
must have physical comforts and supplies
for a long stay. Then I shall build a camp
on this mountain and confer with you long,
if you remain here.”
“We have always remained here. But in
the future, who can say? First we must find
out— But it is useless, now, to try and tell
you. Later perhaps.”
Gardestang nodded. He felt weary and,
in a way, lonely.
“The way up was easy. The way down
^~Jlii <-Hancc of Xanadu, Wa«, Calling
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STARTLING STORIES
win be a long one.”
“No, no. There is a way that the rene¬
gades made. Come.”
He went, with the shape-changers soaring
all around him, on a climb upward. They
urged him toward what seemed a cave. But,
as he drew near, he saw that it was curtained
with a shimmer-sheet.
“Through that. And you will return?”
“I promise.”
“Then soon. We have so much to learn.
And you are the first of this world to reject
the renegades and seek us.”
‘Pay attention to me, you Others,” said
Gardestang. “I know, and you know, that
1 do not understand you well. But, because
cf you, I understand men better. I shall
He stepped through the shimmer-sheet—
staggered and reeled—and it was the hand
of Tommy Gatchell who caught him and
held him steady, back on the ledge of
Serrano,
“Out of the thin air, eh?” Dr. Parr was
greeting him. “Another shimmer - sheet
somewhere above?”
“Another shimmer-sheet,” said Garde-
stang. “And victory. And plenty to tell
you, if I can find the words. Theolinda.
Where is she?”
He pulled off his helmet. Theolinda was
there, her pale face all turned to smiles.
“We’ve found the way down, or Lautoro
did,” Tommy told him. “A tunnel behind
one of the huts, with carved stone steps,
leading down to the country below. Goodby
to Serrano.”
“No, not goodby,” Gardestang said.
“Coming back?” asked Dr. Parr.
“I’m going to build an observatory here.
I’ve got studying to do on Cachacamool.”
“Glad to hear you’re staying,” smiled Parr.
“So is this young lady, I judge. Tell us
about it on the stairs going down.”
CHAPTER XVI
Afterword
S UCH basic things as time and space and
what they mean to the Others, men have
no way of knowing as yet. It is established
that the Others came from another world,
and that to them this world has been as
utterly strange as theirs would be to us.
Upon their landing-place they have made
a definite impact, commencing in ages too
long past for us to reckon.
That impact came when they cast outlaws
out of their ranks, outlaws who have scram¬
bled and smutted the minds and lives of
men ever since. Why they originally came
and why they stayed, on this planet, so full
of obstacles to creatures of their sort, will
take long to comprehend.
When we know, it will be a great step to¬
ward knowledge and sympathy between our
kind and theirs.
The most that can be done is to suggest.
It seems that they have always had curi¬
osity, the curiosity that builds into a sublime
possession of the soul, even with us. They
wanted to know, perhaps for no reason but
knowledge itself. Mankind in selected cases
experiences that urge. A Galileo rakes the
unknown abysses of the universe with his
telescope, a Picard dares the stratosphere,
a Beebe invades ocean's floor, a Gardestang
addresses himself to darkling mysteries that
seem to peep from another plane where the
very facts of existence are diametrically
opposite to our experience.
It is probable that the Others who dwell
on the dry, rarefied peaks of the Andes
represent a selfless scholarly group from
wherever they called home, that they came
to find out what went on at the bottom of
vast valleys full of poisonous oxygen, and
that they were baffled and dismayed, and
all the more determined for that.
The best of them sought no profits or
powers. If they had wanted those, they
would have taken possession of the Earth
long ago. The few of their devices which
were made manifest to humanity bespoke
science enough for such a course. They
never tried to invade or exploit.
The cult of depraved worshippers and
experimenters which came to proper disas¬
ter in Chile was not really of their making,
not even of the making of the renegades.
It might be compared to a synthesis of
vicious elements in the Others and in hu¬
manity. The cult did not understand. Its
failure to understand has been as complete
as that of mankind in general, and far more
pitiful.
But if full understanding is still remote,
the foundation is being laid. On Tommy
Gatchell’s last journey to Chile—he is an
airline executive today — Gardestang and
Theolinda came down from their observa¬
tory-home on the ledge of Serrano. Dr.
Parr joined them, and the four took dinner
STRANGERS ON THE HEIGHTS
59
together at the Hotel Braganza.
“This much we can prepare to accept,”
announced Gardestang over the coffee.
“They don’t want to kill us, or rule us, or
rob us, or even change us. They do want
to know about us, and it’s touching to see
them try. Our thought-transference exer¬
cises are progressing. We’ve gone through
work with those tarots that poor Rico hated
so, and now we’re on geometric and alge¬
braic symbols. And we know that we can
trust each other, even before we’re sure
what we both want.”
“Did it ever occur to you that they want
to help us?” offered Tommy.
“Did it ever occur,” rejoined Dr. Parr,
“that they may want us to help them?”
“Both ideas have occurred to me,” said
Gardestang. “Would you be ready for an
adventure with them, if they got the idea
across? Go to another world, perhaps an¬
other time or dimension or wherever they
come from?”
“Like a shot,” Tommy almost cried, his
fearless eyes blazing with the old joyous
light of battle. “And you, Duke? Would
Theolinda let you?”
Theolinda laughed.
“Let him go? Why not? I’d be coming
along, wouldn’t I?”
The efforts at mutual understanding are
continuing.
A miner on Mars rises to spectacular heights of power on
the red planet ivhile the universe hums with
amazing intrigue that will astonish you
IN
SHADOW OVER MARS
By LEIGH BRACKETT
NEXT ISSUE'S COMPLETE BOOK-LENGTH NOVEL OF THE FUTURE
Perkin’s toe caught the beast in the side and sent it sailing like a football
Get Votar Extra Here!
By WILLIAM MORRISON
Henpecked Horace Perkin Travels to a Space-Warp, Confronting
Venomous Monsters, Future Scientists and a Dangerous Villain!
W ITHOUT the slightest sus¬
picion that this day was to be
in any respect different from
any other day of his monotonous life,
Horace Perkin thrust a shivering arm
through the doorway. He gripped the
morning paper in a shaking hand, and
snatched it inside. From the kitchen
he could hear the shrill voice of his
wife, Mary Lou.
“Horace!”
“Yes, dear.”
“Give Junior his orange juice.”
“Yes, dear.”
Horace Perkin had wanted to take a
look at the scores of last night’s bas¬
ketball games, but neither his wife nor
the wailing Junior were in a mood to
brook delay. He threw the newspaper
hastily on a bureau, and proceeded to
give Junior his vitamin C. Then Jane,
the most recent addition to the family,
began to squall, and he attended to her.
In the bathroom, Alfred was carefully
GET YOUR EXTRA HERE!
61
pretending to clean his face with a
mono-molecular film of water, in prep¬
aration for school.
Horace Perkin applied several hand¬
fuls of water, developed a lather by
means of a previously disregarded cake
of soap, and rubbed hard. Moments
later, Alfred’s face was sullen, but
clean.
On the way from the bathroom, Per¬
kin found himself with five seconds to
spare. Hastily snatching up the paper
once more, he prepared to turn to the
basketball scores.
But one headline held his eyes—held
them, and paralyzed him. His arm trem¬
bled as he stared in disbelief. He re¬
peated the words to himself, then looked
at them again. They had not changed.
The headline read:
ROCKET LINER COMPLETES
FIRST ROUND TRIP FROM MARS!
Next came the date—
He felt faint. For the date was June
17, 2135.
If Horace Perkin had found time to
think, he would have decided that the
whole thing was nothing but a hoax.
Actually, he had hardly a second to
himself. Junior’s nose had to be wiped,
Jane had to attend to once more, and
Alfred’s schoolbooks to be found.
Then Perkin hastily devoured his
breakfast, and was off to work. He took
the paper with him, and left behind
an angry wife, who repeated bitterly
that man’s work lasts from sun to sun,
but woman’s work is never done.
He would have read the paper during
the subway ride, but the train was too
crowded to permit him to open it wide
and turn the pages. So he stole a glance
at the headline once more. Again they
announced the arrival of the rocket liner
from Mars.
He folded the paper, put it carefully
away in the pocket of his topcoat, and
left it there all during his stay at the
office. On the train home, he had an
opportunity to read it, but the head¬
lines, as he admitted to himself, were
different from all the other headlines.
and he had no desire to attract attention.
He left the paper severely alone.
After dinner, however, his wife be¬
took herself with several dozens of
socks and a darning needle into her
favorite corner. Then he had his chance.
He spread the paper wide.
If some one had played a hoax, it was
certainly an elaborate one. There were
forty-eight pages, each filled with news
of the world of June, 2135. Much of it
was incomprehensible to him. It told
about places and things and people of
whom he had never heard. He was
pleased however, to find a sports page,
a page of comic strips, and a page of ad¬
vice to the lovelorn. Human nature, it
was evident, had not been entirely trans¬
formed by the passage of almost two
centuries. And on page 17, he discovered
to his joy, a column by John V. Durn,
M.D., giving the replies to medical ques¬
tions asked by various readers.
“Here I sit and slave,” grieved Mary
Lou, “day after day. It’s work, work,
work, day in and day out, with never a
moment’s relaxation to myself. And
you neglect me.”
“But, darling,” said Perkin timidly,
“you do play bridge almost every after¬
noon!”
“So you begrudge me that.” Mary Lou
almost wept. “It’s the sole thing which
keeps me from going crazy. Here you
come home, and bury your head in the
paper, and never give me the least bit
of attention.”
An excellent idea, thought Perkin,
especially as he knew by heart what was
coming next. He began to study Dr.
Durn’s column. Unfortunately, there
was nothing about lumbago, from which
Horace Perkin himself suffered, nor
about rheumatism, the complaint of his
father, nor even about the dishpan hands
that worried Mary Lou. But there was,
he found, something highly interesting
about common colds.
“The great medical problem of the
Twentieth Century, the common respir¬
atory infection known as the cold, and
also as grip, yielded early in the year
2022 to an incredibly simple remedy
which I herewith recommend to my
62
STARTLING STORIES
readers. Take a few grams of sodium
chloride, and several hundred cc. of
cow’s milk—”
“Imagine that,” thought Horace Per¬
kin. “What science won’t think of next!”
His reflections were cut short by a curt
remark from Mary Lou.
“Horace, time to go to bed. That is,
if you expect to get up early tomorrow
morning.”
“Yes, my dear,” replied Perkin. He
took one last lingering glance at the
remarkable newspaper. Then he hid it
among the tubes of the radio set, where
his wife would never find it, before obey¬
ing like the well-trained husband he
It seemed like too much to expect,
but the next morning found another
forty-eight page newspaper in front of
his door. This time the headline ran:
MARS COLONY TO RECEIVE
AUTONOMY
The date was June 18, 2135. He still
did not know those basketball scores,
but he had learned plenty of other
things.
F OR the rest of that week, Perkin
lived in a constant daze. He no
longer believed that any one was per¬
petrating a hoax. On the other hand,
he could think of no new theory to take
the old one’s place. His mind assumed
a condition of what might best be called
suspended animation.
On Friday, he learned, Alfred had a
cold. Suspecting a first that his heir
might have developed a case of sniffles
for no other reason than to avoid school,
Horace Perkin sent him off with the
stern admonition to make sure he was
on time for his classes or he’d get he
knew what.
But that evening he returned to find
Alfred already in bed. Thus he knew
that Alfred's misery was authentic. The
youngster hated bed, and could be in¬
duced to go to sleep each evening only
by the firmest persuasion.
“Poor dear,” said Mary Lou. “And
you didn’t be! :vt him.”
“I’ve caught him faking before.”
“He isn’t faking this time. And you
know, Horace, that every time he has a
cold, it lasts for weeks. He doesn’t get
over it in a day or two, as some children
do.”
Perkin nodded. And then an idea
came to him. As he put on his hat and
coat, his wife looked up in surprise.
“Where do you think you’re going,
Horace Perkin?”
“To the druggist, for some medicine.”
And before Mary Lou could reply, he
was out of the house.
At the druggist’s, Horace Perkin
spoke firmly. “I want a few grams of
sodium chloride.”
There was a newly fledged clerk be¬
hind the counter, and he looked both
suspicious and haughty.
“Trying to kid me, bud?”
“Why, no.”
“Sodium chloride is ordinary table
salt.”
“I didn’t know,” apologized Perkin.
How much would a few grams be?”
“About as much as you can get on a
teaspoon, more or less.”
“And how much is several hundred
cc. of milk?”
“About a cup,” replied the clerk,
proud of his knowledge.
Perkin hastened home, and sought the
newpaper which gave the cold remedy
of the future. It was the work of but
a few moments to prepare the mixture
recommended by Dr. John V. Durn, and
the work of a few moments more to con¬
vince his wife that she would not be
interested in what he was doing.
Alfred was drowsy, and offered little
opposition to his father pouring the
liquid down his throat. And now, de¬
cided Perkin, he would see how reliable
this newspaper of the future was.
He went to bed himself shortly after.
And as he was drifting off to sleep, an¬
other idea struck him. He reached out
and fumbled drowsily with his alarm
clock. In the morning, he would solve
this problem once and for all.
Sleep easily overtook him.
The alarm clock buzzed noisily, and
Perkin stretched out an angry hand.
Still halx asleep, he was angry at the
GET YOUR EXTRA HERE!
alarm for having gone off almost an
hour before its usual time. But as he
was settling back for that additional
rest, he suddenly remembered. He
hopped out of bed, and pulled on his
trousers.
A few seconds later, his feet thrust
into a pair of shabby old slippers, he
hastened toward the door. He had meant
to watch that paper being delivered and
learn why it was being brought to his
doorstep. He hoped he was not too
late.
But he was. The newsboy had come
and gone, and as Perkin picked up the
Morning Sentinel, he was conscious of
a pang of disappointment. No news¬
paper of the future was this. Just an
ordinary late edition, with its usual
quota of murders, robberies, divorces
and marriages. Somebody, decided
Perkin, must have suspected what he
was going to do.
M E HAD just arrived at this deci¬
sion when everything went, as he
described it later, purple in front of
him. He felt himself falling, falling—
always in the same place. And then,
before he could make up his mind
whether he was afraid or not, the purple
gave way to the ordinary light of day.
Perkin was standing on two feet again,
like an ordinary human being, although
from the way the stranger was looking
at him, you might have thought he was
some kind of bug. Nearby was a squat
cylinder covered with multi-colored
lenses.
The stranger was tall and bronzed,
but with an absent look upon his face
that did not fit his athletic appearance.
He was dressed in soft clothes that
changed color as he moved, stretching
like rubber as he lifted an arm. But
they hung as smoothly as the finest se-
quined cloth otherwise. In plain words
this fellow looked to Perkin like a nut,
and Perkin began to feel resentful at
being stared at. He was also angered
at having been kidnapped and brought
to this strange place.
“What’s the big idea, bud?” he de¬
manded, with a toughness he hoped
would not be challenged. “What kind
of monkey business are you tryin’ to pull
off around here?”
“I beg your pardon?” said the man.
Horace Perkin noted, to his amaze¬
ment, that the man’s speech seemed to
combine the accent of Oxford with the
slow drawl of the West, the nasal twang
of New England, and the soft slurred
cadences of the South.
“What are you doing in my labora¬
tory?”
“Look, bud, I was standin’ on my own
doorstep, pickin’ up my newspaper.” He
shook the Morning Sentinel in front of
the man’s nose. “Then you began to pull
funny stunts. I ain’t going stand for
it, see?”
The man was staring at the news¬
paper. His eye must have caught one
of the headlines, for suddenly his face
cleared.
“Of, of course,” he exclaimed. “Fol¬
low me, please. And by the way, my
name is not, as you suppose, ‘bud.’ I
am Professor Helder.”
“Pleased to meetcha, Professor,” an¬
nounced Perkin, and followed meekly.
There was a reception committee of
half a dozen men apparently waiting for
Professor Helder. They stared at
Horace Perkin. Again he felt like a
bug. He began to feel more and more
resentful.
One of them, a sallow man with a
pinched face, even put a sort of irri-
descent monocle to his eye, the better
to examine him.
“Ah, what is this, Professor Helder?”
he asked.
“You see before you, gentlemen, a
specimen of humanity from the Twenti¬
eth Century,” came the pompous answer.
There was a murmur as of interest,
but not too great surprise. The pinch¬
faced man, whose name was Murdock,
spoke again.
“Some connection with those news¬
papers, I suppose?”
“You suppose rightly, Murdock. I
do not know how, but in some manner
the space-warp apparatus which we were
using several months ago has been set
in operation once more. I suspect the
64
janitor of tampering with it. Quite ac¬
cidentally, I imagine, the time-gears
have been set in motion. Hence the
daily disappearance of our own news¬
paper, and the appearance of the primi¬
tive sheet, the Morning Sentinel.”
Horace Perkin did not understand all
this. But he did get the general drift
of what the man was saying. He sud¬
denly felt faint. So those newspapers
had come from the Twenty-second Cen¬
tury after all. And he had made a lit¬
tle trip.
Helder went on. "Of course we know,
that under ordinary conditions, it is
impossible to travel from the present
to the past. The continuity of past
space-time leaves no room for the in¬
sertion of any body from the future.
Only when a multi-dimensional vacuum
is created in the past can it be filled
from time to come—as in the case of
those newspapers. But it is possible to
travel to the future from the past. We
have known that fact theoretically for
some time. This man’s presence here
is indisputable proof.”
jgfgO.RACE PERKIN interrupted.
“Look. I don’t get what you’re
saying, and I don’t give a cuss what it
is. I want to get back to Mary Lou and
the family.”
“My good fellow, what you demand
is impossible. The past is definitely
gone. It may as well be forgotten.
“You don’t understand,” said Perkin.
“I got a wife and three kids. Who’s
gonna take care of them if I ain’t there?”
Professor Helder smiled, as if humor¬
ing an idiot. “There’s no need for any¬
one to take care of them. Of course,
from the point of view of space-time,
they continue to exist, and always will.
But from the point of view of time
alone, they have been dead for more
than a century. I can assure you, my
dear fellow, that all their problems have
long since been solved.”
“They’re dead?” repeated Horace
Perkin, wide-eyed. And then a stub¬
born look came into his eyes, as if he
bad been arguing with Mary Lou. “I
don’t believe it. I was with them,
wasn’t I? I’m here alive, ain’t I? Well,
if I could get here, I could get back.”
“You can’t,” answered Helder. His
eyes grew clouded with worry. “I wish
I was sure of what happened to that
space-warp machine. Yesterday the
janitor denied he had touched it.”
“Professor Helder,” interrupted Mur¬
dock. “Don’t you think we had better
secure some decent clothes for this
individual?”
“Of course. See that he’s taken care
of, Murdock.”
Perkin hardly heard them. His brow
was furrowed as his clothes were taken
away and new ones given him, like the
ones all the other men wore. He had to
get back home. No matter what the
others said, he had to get back.
After they had clothed him, they in¬
troduced Perkin to some of their food.
He was surprised to find it very much
like the food of the Twentieth Century.
There was even fish, with bones in it
that stuck in his throat. The only dif¬
ference was that there were more vita¬
mins. He felt a vague sense of dis¬
appointment.
His disappointment, however, was
nothing compared to that of the learned
men who examined him later in the day.
Professor Helder had a low opinion of
Horace Perkin’s intelligence. But even
he did not realize how little his unex¬
pected guest knew.
“What were your personal impres¬
sions of Professor Einstein?” demanded
one savant.
“Him? I never knew the guy.”
The questioner seemed taken aback.
"But he was the one man of scientific
eminence that the Twentieth Century
produced.”
“So what? I don’t know any science.
And before you come across with some
more hot ones about what happened
when I met President Roosevelt, or
Churchill, or Stalin, let me tell you
something, bud. The Twentieth Cen¬
tury was a big place. All I knew about
these guys was what I read about them
in the newspapers. You can read about
’em if you want to just like I did. If
you don’t like it—utsnay to you.”
GET YOUR EXTRA HERE!
Perkin had never used slang or pig-
latin either at home or at his office.
Here, however, in this super-refined
atmosphere, he felt he had to be vulgar
or burst. He did not burst.
After a few more futile questions,
they left him alone. Perkin found him¬
self a derelict in the Twenty-second
Century.
For a time he enjoyed his isolation.
It took him a few days to realize that
he was in a giant laboratory and re¬
search institute, and that like everyone
else inside the huge institution, he was
entitled to free food and clothing. No
one questioned him any longer. No one
told him what to do. This research in¬
stitute of the future was a magnificent
place, but because of his ignorance of
science, most of its wonders were
thrown away on him. He saw every¬
thing without understanding the small¬
est part of it.
T HROUGH it all, however, one
thought ran persistently through
his mind. “I’ve gotta get back,” he said
to himself.
He wondered how the office was get¬
ting along without him, and what Mary
Lou was doing, and whether Alfred had
ever learned to wash behind his ears.
But no matter where he looked, there
seemed to be no way of making that trip
into Time.
Then one day he found himself again
in Professor Helder’s laboratory.
Professor Helder did not notice him.
In fact, both Helder and his assistant.
Murdock, seemed too excited to notice
anything but the half-dozen large rab¬
bit-like animals which crouched near a
squat cylinder which was equipped with
multi-colored lenses. Perkin remem¬
bered that cylinder subconsciously. It
was the space-warp machine that had
brought him into this century.
He would have thought the animals
were genuine rabbits, had it not been
for their teeth. Instead of the harmless
broad-surfaced grass-grinding molars,
these beasts had sharp, slender needle¬
like spikes. All the same, thought
Horace Perkin, they were rather cute.
But neither Professor Helder nor
Murdock seemed to think so; They were
shrinking back toward the doorway
where Perkin stood. Suddenly, one of
the rabbit-like beasts threw himself after
them. It ran, not in long leaps, as a
genuine rabbit would have done, but
with tiny rapid steps like an oversize
mouse. Professor Helder barely threw
himself aside, as the beast crashed into
an obstruction.
“Scared of a rabbit,” said Perkin con¬
temptuously. He picked up the stunned
animal, and fondly patted its head.
“Nice bunny, nice bunny. Don’t be
afraid of the man. He won’t hurt you.”
The animal looked up at him glassi-
ly, and Perkin was shocked to dis¬
cover that it was doing its looking with
three remarkably bright eyes, the third
one being between and above the others,
almost covered by the fur. This third
eye added a somewhat sinister touch to
the little beast, and did what the spike¬
like teeth had not. It startled Horace
Perkin.
He dropped the animal to the floor.
As he did so, the other rabbits rushed
at him.
By this time Professor Helder and
Murdock had slipped out of the room.
Left alone with the weird creatures,
Perkin began to grow angry. What
kind of place was this, when even the
rabbits hated everybody?
The first beast reached him. Perkin
swung his foot and his toe caught the
animal in the side and sent it sailing
like a football. It knocked over the
others like so many ninepins. In a
second, though, they were up again. But
now they came at him one by one, and
Perkin could handle them in fine style.
His foot thumped again and again,
sending them spinning back against the
wall. One got past his guard and ran
up his leg, but he batted it to the floor
with the back of his hand. It made a
futile attempt to bite him as it fell.
Just to take no chances, he kicked this
animal a couple of extra times for good
luck.
The whole set-to had taken less than
a minute. Perkin stared at the defeated
66
STARTLING STORIES
rabbits, and began to feel ashamed of
himself.
At that moment, the door opened, and
Professor Helder cautiously poked his
head in. He caught sight of the stunned
creatures on the floor, and turned to
some one behind him. A pair of men
marched in, carrying cages. Behind
them, fearfully, came Murdock.
The men with the cages transferred
the rabbits to them with great caution,
and then marched out again. Murdock
sighed with relief, and turned toward
Professor Helder.
“Clearly a case where ignorance is
bliss,” he commented.
TWELDER nodded. “My dear sir,”
he said to Perkin. “Do you real¬
ize what those animals are?”
“They look like rabbits to me."
“They’re Martian venom-beasts. One
scratch of their teeth, and you would
have been a dead man. Each animal
alone is capable of destroying a thou¬
sand men."
He glanced at Horace Perkin impres¬
sively. But the dignity of his manner
was nothing compared to the dignity
of Perkin’s slow faint.
When he revived, the two scientists
were deep in a worried discussion.
“I tell you, Murdock,” said rofessor
Helder, “matters are getting serious.
This could have been no accident. Some
one deliberately set that space-warp ma¬
chine so he could reach Mars.”
Horace Perkin sat up.
“What's that?” he demanded. “What’s
Mars got to do with this?”
“I should like to know the answer
myself. Those animals were never
brought here aboard ship. They came
directly through space. I don’t under¬
stand why.”
“You mean that machine brought
them, like it brought me.”
“Exactly. And that isn’t the only
mystery. Just as objects have been ap¬
pearing here from unexpected parts of
time and space, other objects have been
disappearing. I don’t understand this
at all.”
“Maybe there’s a crook around.”
“A crook? You mean a thief? Im¬
possible. The criminal mind is an ana¬
chronism. Crime has been abolished.”
“Says you.” Perkin’s voice was skep¬
tical. “All the same, that ain't what
I wanted to talk to you about. I meant
to ask you a question, Professor. Using
that machine, could you send those ani¬
mals back where they came from?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“Then why can't you send me back
where I came from?”
“Time-travel, as I have already ex¬
plained to you,” began the professor
impatiently, “is in a different category
from space-travel. There is no empti¬
ness in past space-time, therefore any
attempt to squeeze in—if I may be al¬
lowed to use the term—a body from
the future, can lead only to catastrophe.”
“Well, where I came from ought to
be empty all right, all right! One
minute I was standing on my front
stoop, picking up the morning papers.
The next minute I was here, listening
to you sound off. Who took my place?
Tell me that.”
“By Jove, I see what you mean. Of
course no one else did. Why, I had
assumed that something else was sub¬
stituted. In that case it might be pos¬
sible to send you back!”
He threw open the top of the space-
warp machine. “Come here, Murdock.
Help me adjust this thing.”
For a few moments the two of them
fiddled around with the different dials
and switches, breaking old connections
and making new ones. Horace Perkm
felt rather proud of himself. He did
not know anything about science, but
he had seen something the professor
had overlooked. That put hun at the
head of the class.
He did not want to puzzle Mary Lou
by coming home in strange clothes.
She would be sure to ask too many ques¬
tions. So he looked around for the
locker where they had put his original
garments, and slipped into them. When
he returned to the space-warp machine,
Murdock and Professor Helder had
stopped working. The professor was
staring at a slip of paper an- ;.,;r as-
GET YOUR EXTRA HERE!
07
jistant had brought him.
“All these things missing? Good
leavens, it’s incredible. Half a dozen
jrams of radium alone would be im¬
possible to replace. I don’t see who
:ould have taken them.”
“That crook been here again?” Perkin
was greatly interested.
‘T tell you, we have no crime in the
Twenty-second Century.”
“You gotta believe your own eyes,
professor. I figure it this way. The
guy who lifted these things figured
he wouldn’t last long. So he starts
looking around for a place to make a
getaway.”
P ROFESSOR HELDER shook his
head. “Assuming there is such a
thing as crime in existence, a criminal
would be discovered wherever he went.”
“Not if he hustled into the Twen¬
tieth Century—he’d be lost in the shuf¬
fle.” Perkin’s voice was triumphant.
“So what happened to the space-warp
machine wasn’t no accident. This crook
thinks he’ll throw himself back a couple
of centuries, where nobody can pin any¬
thing on him. What does he do? He
makes experiments with them news¬
papers, and they work all right. Then,
just by accident, he leaves the machine
on while he goes to see about something
else, and I come poppin’ into the pic¬
ture.”
Helder stared at Perkin. “It sounds
reasonable.”
“He’s all set to send himself back in
time,” Perkin was warming to his sub¬
ject. “He hears you talk about how
dangerous it is. What happens? He
loses his nerve, and tries to get to Mars,
or some other planet. But that don’t
look so good either. So he don’t know
what to do.”
“On the contrary, my dear fellow.”
It was Murdock who spoke unexpected¬
ly. "He knows exactly what to do.”
“Murdock!” Professor Helder stared
as if he could not believe his eyes.
‘Then it was you who stole those ar¬
ticles?”
“Sure, professor, it had to be some-
aody who knew how to handle that
machine,” remarked Perkin. “No jani¬
tor could have done it.”
There was a thin metal rod in Mur¬
dock’s hands, which he pointed at the
others.
“This Twentieth Century bumpkin
has deduced exactly what happened,”
he admitted.
“Shucks, it was easy,” said Perkin.
“I know all about crooks from reading
the papers every day. I even meet some
now and then. They ain’t rare, like
Professor Einstein.”
Murdock had discarded his pedagogic
manner like a useless garment. There
was a scowl on his brow now, and a
sneer on his lips.
“There’s plenty of other things this
stupid fool doesn’t know,” he snarled.
“Dr. Helder, I’m going to force you to
send me into the Twentieth Century
in his place. Here I may be an ana¬
chronism, but I fancy I will feel right
at home back there.”
He stepped upon a small platform
in front of the space-warp machine.
“Pull the switch, Professor, or else—”
It was with that Twentieth Century
threat ringing in his ears that Perkin
acted. He plunged at Murdock, who
was pointing the metal rod at him. Mur¬
dock looked as if he could not believe
his eyes when Perkin leaped forward.
Murdock was a big man, and Perkin
was not. But Horace Perkin was fight¬
ing for Mary Lou and his three kids.
He hit Murdock in the jaw, kicked
him in the stomach, and then pulled the
metal rod out of his weakened hand
and popped him over the head with it.
Murdock fell to the floor.
Professor Helder swallowed hard.
"It’s unbelievable,” he gasped. “That
annihilator gun could have blasted you
out of existence in the fraction of a sec¬
ond. You had no idea that the safety
catch was stuck. And yet you tackled
Murdock as boldly as if life meant noth¬
ing whatever to you.”
Perkin felt weak again. But he had
no time to lose in fainting now.
“I’ve been up against really tough
opposition,” he said. “I’ve been up
against Mary Lou. And now, Profes-
STARTLING STORIES
sor, let’s not waste any more time. You
can turn Murdock over to your cops if
you want. But I gotta get home. So
if you’ll throw that switch I’d be much
obliged.”
Perkin stepped on the platform from
which he had just thrown Murdock.
The professor’s hand moved toward the
switch. Then everything went purple
again, and—
Perkin was on his own doorstep once
more. Everything seemed about the
same as usual, except that he had no
newspaper.
He moved back into the house. In¬
side he could hear Mary Lou getting
up. He dragged his feet along slowly,
trying to decide whether the thoughts
that were racing around in his mind had
anything to do with reality or were only
a dream.
Could it be he had actually made a
trip into the Twenty-Second Century?
And come back? He had no proof. Of
course, the morning newspaper was
gone. But the explanation for that
might be simple. The boy might have
failed to deliver it. Or perhaps some
one picked it up and forgot to put it
back.
M ARY LOU’S voice broke against
his ears, shrill and angry. “Hor¬
ace, where are you?”
“Coming, my love.” Queer, he thought,
how he hadn’t been afraid of those ven¬
om-beasts, or that annihilator gun. Yet
here he was scared to death of Mary
Lou. The only thing needed was to
tell her where she got off, and he’d be
a free man in his own home. And that’s
what he was going to do, by Jupiter!
If he could face those venom-beasts—
But had really faced them? Sud¬
denly he remembered something. He
went over to the radio and thrust his
hand in among the tubes.
He drew it out again slowly, a blank
look on his face. The newspapers of the
Twenty-Second Century were gone.
“Mary Lou.” His voice rose in agony.
“Did you take those papers I left in the
radio.”
“I threw them out. I’m not going to
have the house cluttered up with junk,
Horace."
So there was really no proof. Had it
all been only a dream, after all?
He tried to reason things out. He had
spent some time in the Twenty-Second
Century, but had not aged a bit. The
vitamins must have kept him looking the
same age. His clothes had not been worn
enough to show any signs of wear and
tear. And he had come back at exactly
the same moment when he had departed.
So no one had noticed his absence.
He shook his head slowly, trying to
clear his thoughts. And at that moment
he heard Mary Lou’s voice again, shrill
and angry as usual. “Alfred, you go
right back to bed.”
“What for, Mom? I ain’t got no more
cold. I’m all right now.”
Alfred’s voice was clear. The nasal
tones had vanished. His cold was gone.
Yet on previous occasions he always
had been sick for a week.
A miracle! Alfred had been cured by
a cold remedy yet to be invented. Sud¬
denly Perkin's last doubt had vanished.
All uncertainty had disappeared. He
knew. Those future newspapers, the
space-warp machine, Professor Helder,
Murdock, the venom beasts—they were
all true. He scowled to himself for a mo¬
ment. Then his brow cleared. Remained
one thing to be done—
He hummed gaily to himself. Mary
Lou’s voice rose again. “Horace, stop
that noise.”
Perkin calmly went on humming.
Poor girl, he almost felt sorry for her.
What a surprise she was going to get!
Coming Next Issue: THE DAY OF THE BEAST, a Hall of Fame Classic
of a Perilous Scientific Experiment, by D. D. Sharp—
Plus Other Stories and features!
WANDERER ©E FINE
By BOLTON OIOSS
Blake Carson Rips Open the Veil of the Future—and What He
Sees Therein Thrusts Him into
P ROFESSOR HARDWICK once
delivered a learned lecture to a
group of earnest students.
“Time does not exist in actual fact,”
Professor Hardwick had said. “It is
simply the term science applies to a
condition of space which it does not
fully comprehend. We know that there
has been a Past, and can prove it: we
also know that there is a Future, but
we cannot prove it. Therein lies the
need for the term ‘Time,’ in order that
a Bitter Quest for Vengeance!
an insurmountable difficulty may be¬
come resolved into common understand¬
ing.”
This excerpt from his paper—a pedan¬
tic observation without doubt — had
prompted Blake Carson, spare-time dab¬
bler in physics, to think further. Much
further. He had heard Hardwick make
that statement five years ago. Now
Hardwick was dead, but every observa¬
tion he had ever made, every treatise he
had written, had been absorbed to the
70
STARTLING STORIES
full by the young physicist. Between
the ages of twenty-five and thirty he had
plowed through the deeper works of
Einstein, Eddington, and Jeans to boot.
“Time,” Blake Carson observed, to
his little laboratory, when the five years
had gone by, “definitely does not exist!
It is a concept engendered by the limi¬
tations of a physical body. And a physi¬
cal body, according to Eddington and
Jeans, is the outward manifestation of
thought itself. Change the thought and
you change the body in like proportion.
You believe you know the past. So ad¬
just your mind to the situation and there
is no reason why you shouldn’t know
the future.”
Two years later he added an amend¬
ment.
“Time is a circle, in which thought
itself and all its creations go in an ever¬
lasting cycle, repeating the process
without end. Therefore, if we have in
a remote past done the same things we
are doing now, it is logical to assume
that some hangover of memory may be
left behind—a hangover from the past
which, from the present standpoint, will
be in the future, so far back is it in the
time circle.
“The medium for thought is the brain.
Therefore, any hangover must be in
the brain. Find that, and you have the
key to future time. All you will actually
do will be to awake a memory of the re¬
mote past.”
F ROM this conception there sprouted
in Blake Carson’s laboratory a com¬
plicated mass of apparatus contrived
from hard earned savings and erected in
spare time. Again and again he built and
rebuilt, tested and experimented, finally
got assistance from two other young
men with ideas similar to his own. They
did not fully understand his theory but
his enthusiasm certainly impressed
them.
At last he had things exactly as he
wanted them, summoned his two friends
one Saturday evening and waved a hand
to his apparatus.
Dick Glenbury was shock-haired,
ruddy faced, and blue-eyed—a man of
impulses, honesty, and dependable con¬
centration. Hart Cranshaw was the ex¬
act opposite—sallow-skinned, always un¬
ruffled, black haired. A brilliant physi¬
cist, confirmed cynic, with only his great
intelligence to save him from being a
complete boor.
“Boys, I have it,” Blake Carson de¬
clared with enthusiasm, gray eyes
gleaming. “You know my theory re¬
garding the hangover. This”—he mo¬
tioned to the apparatus—“is the Probe.”
“You don’t mean you intend to use all
this stuff on your brain to probe for the
right spot, do you?” Dick Glenbury de¬
manded.
“That is the idea, yes.”
“When you’ve done this, what then?”
Cranshaw asked, sticking to the practi¬
cal side, as usual.
“Tell you better when I know some¬
thing,” Carson grinned. “Right now I
want you to follow out instructions.”
He seated himself in the chair im¬
mediately under the wilderness of odd
looking lenses, lamps, and tubes. Fol¬
lowing directions Glenbury busied him¬
self with the switchboard. One projec¬
tor gave forth a violet ray which en¬
veloped Blake Carson’s head completely.
Opposite him, so he could see it
clearly, a squared and numbered screen
came into life and gave a perfect sil¬
houette, X-ray wise, of his skull. It
differed only from X-ray in that the
convolutions of the brain were clearly
shown with more vividity than any
other part.
“There,” Carson gasped abruptly.
“Look in Section Nine, Square Five.
There’s a black oval mark—a blind spot.
No registration at all. That is a hang¬
over.”
He pressed a switch on the chair arm.
“Taking a photograph,” he explained.
Then giving the order to cut off the
entire apparatus, he got to his feet.
Within a few minutes the self-develop¬
ing tank produced a finished print. He
handed it round in obvious delight.
“So what?” Cranshaw growled, his
sallow face mystified. “Now you have
got a blind spot what good does it do
you? All this is way outside the
WANDERER OF TIME
71
physics I ever learned. You still can’t
see the future.” This last was added
with some impatience.
“But I shall.” Carson’s voice was
tense. “You notice that that blind spot
is exactly where we might expect it to
be? In the subconscious area. To get
a clear knowledge of what the spot con¬
tains there is only one method to use.”
“Yeah,” Glenbury said grimly. “A
surgeon should link up the blank portion
with the active portion of your brain
by means of a nerve. And would that
be a ticklish business.”
“I don’t need a surgeon,” Carson said.
“Why a real nerve? A nerve is only a
fleshly means of carrying minute elec¬
trical sensation. A small electric device
can do it just as well. In other words an
external mechanical nerve.”
M E turned aside and brought forth
an object not unlike a stethoscope.
At both ends were suction caps and
small dry batteries. Between the caps
was a length of strong cable.
“A brain gives off minute electric
charges—anybody knows that,” Carson
resumed. “This mechanical device
can accomplish the thing through the
skull bone. Thereby the blind spot and
normal brain area would be linked. At
least that’s how I figure it.”
"Well, all right," Dick Glenbury said,
with an uneasy glance at Hart Cran-
shaw. “To me it sounds like a novel way
of committing suicide.”
“Like suffocating in your own waste,”
Cranshaw agreed.
“If you weren't so fact-bound you’d
see my point,” Blake snorted. “Any¬
way, I’m going to try it.”
Again he switched on his brain-read¬
ing equipment, studied the screen and
the photograph for a moment, then he
clamped one end of the artificial nerve
device onto his skull. The other suction
cup he moved indecisively about his
head, positioning it by watching it on
the screen. Time and again he fished
round the blind spot, finally pressed
the cap home.
A sensation of crawling sickness
passed through him as though his body
were being slowly turned inside out.
His laboratory, the tense faces of Glen¬
bury and Cranshaw misted mysteriously
and were gone. Images as though re¬
flected from disturbed water rippled
through his brain.
An inchoate mass of impressions
slammed suddenly into his conscious¬
ness. There were scurrying people
superimposed on ragged cliffs, against
which plunged foaming seas. From the
cliffs there seemed to sprout the towers
of an unknown, remote, incomparably
beautiful city catching the light of an
unseen sun.
Machines—people—mists. A thunder-
ing, grinding pain. . . .
He opened his eyes suddenly to find
himself sprawled on the laboratory floor
with brandy scorching his throat.
“Of all the darned, tomfool experi¬
ments,” Dick Glenbury exploded. “You
went out like a light after the first few
minutes.”
“I told you it was no use,” Cranshaw
snorted. “The laws of physics are
against this kind of thing. Time is
locked up—”
“No, Hart, it isn’t.” Carson stirred on
the floor and rubbed his aching head.
“Definitely it isn’t,” he insisted.
Getting to his feet he stared before
him dreamily.
“I saw the future!” he whispered. “It
wasn’t anything clear—but it must have
been the future. There was a city such
as we have never imagined. Everything
was cross sectioned, like a montage.
The reason for that was my own inaccu¬
racy with the artificial nerve. Next time
I’ll do better.”
“Next time,” Cranshaw echoed. “You’re
going on with this risk? It might even
kill you before you’re through.”
“Perhaps,” Carson admitted, in a quiet
voice. He shrugged. “Pioneers have
often paid dearly for their discoveries.
But I have a key. I’m going on, boys,
until it swings wide open.”
For months afterwards Blake Carson
became absorbed in his experiments. He
gave up his ordinary work, lived on what
savings he had and went tooth and nail
after his discovery.
72
STARTLING STORIES
At first he was elated by the preci¬
sion and accuracy with which he could
achieve results. Then as days passed
both Hart Cranshaw and Dick Glenbury
noticed that an odd change had come
over him, for he seemed morose, afraid
of letting some statement or other
escape him.
“What is it, Blake?” Dick Glenbury
insisted one evening, when he had
arrived for the latest report on progress.
“You’re different. Something is on your
mind. You can surely tell me, your best
friend.”
A S Blake Carson smiled, Glenbury
suddenly noticed how tired he
looked.
“Which doesn’t include Hart, eh?”
Carson asked.
“I didn’t mean that exactly. But he is
a bit cold blooded when it comes to
truths. What’s wrong?”
“I have discovered when I am to die,”
Blake Carson said soberly.
“So what? We all die sometime.”
Dick Glenbury stopped uneasily. There
was a strange look on Blake Carson’s
worn face.
“Yes, we all die sometime, of course,
but I shall go one month hence. On
April fourteenth. And I shall die in the
electric chair for first degree murder.”
Dick Glenbury stared, appalled.
“What! You, a murderer? Why, it’s
utterly—say, that artificial nerves has
gone cockeyed.”
“I’m afraid not, Dick,” answered
Carson. “I realize now, that death ends
this particular phase of existence on this
plane. The views of the future which I
have seen refer to some other plane
ways beyond this, the plane where suc¬
cessive deaths would ultimately carry
me. With death, all association with
things here is broken.”
“I still don’t believe murder is ahead
of you,” Dick Glenbury said.
“None the less I shall die as a con¬
victed murderer,” Carson went on, his
voice harsh. “The man who gets me into
this approaching mess and who will
have the perfect alibi is—Hart Cran¬
shaw.”
“Hart? You mean he is going to
commit a murder deliberately and blame
you for it?”
“Without doubt. We know already
that he is interested now in this inven¬
tion of mine; we know too that he real¬
izes he has a blind spot in his brain,
just as everybody else has. Hart, cold
blooded and calculating, sees the value
of this invention to gain power and
control for himself. Stock markets,
gambling speculations, history before
it appears. He could even rule the
world. He will steal the secret from me
and rid himself of the only two men in
the world who know of his villainy.”
“The only two men?” repeated Glen¬
bury. “You mean I, also, will be slain?”
“Yes.” Blake Carson’s voice had a
far away sound.
“But this can’t happen,” Glenbury
shouted huskily. “I’m not going to—to
be murdered just to further the aims of
Hart Cranshaw. Like blazes I am. You
forget, Blake—forewarned is forearmed.
We can defeat this.” His voice became
eager. “Now that we know about it, we
can take steps to block him.”
“No,” Carson interrupted. “I’ve had
many weeks to think this over, Dick—
weeks that have nearly driven me mad as
I realized the truth. The law of time is
inexorable. It must happen! Don’t you
even yet realise that all I have seen is
only an infinitely remote memory from
a past time, over which moments we are
passing again? All this has happened
before. You will be murdered as surely
as I knew you would come here tonight,
and I shall die convicted of that
murder.”
Dick Glenbury’s face had gone the
color of putty. “When does it happen?”
“At exactly nine minutes after eleven
tonight—here.” Carson paused and
gripped Glenbury’s shoulders tightly.
“Stars above, Dick, can’t you realise
how all this hurts me, how frightful it
is for me to have to tell it all to you.
It’s only because I know you’re a hun¬
dred percent that I spoke at all.”
“Yes—I know.” Glenbury sank weakly
into a chair. For a moment or two his
mind wandered. Next he found that his
WANDERER OF TIME
73
frozen gaze was fixed on the electric
clock. It was exactly forty minutes
past ten.
“At ten to eleven—in ten minutes,
that is—Hart will come here,” Carson
resumed. “His first words will be—
‘Sorry I’m late, boys, but I got held up
at an Extraordinary Board Meeting.’
An argument will follow, then murder.
Everything is clear up to the moment
of my death. After that Hart is extin¬
guished from my future. The vision of
life continuing in a plane different from
this one is something I have pondered
pretty deeply.”
miCK GLENBURY did not speak,
but Carson went on, musing aloud.
“Suppose,” Carson said, “I were to
try an experiment with time? Suppose,
because I possess knowledge no man has
ever had so far—I were able to upset the
order of the Circle. Suppose, I came
back, after I have been electrocuted, to
confront Hart with your murder and
my wrongful execution?”
“How,” Glenbury’s mind was too
lethargic to take things in.
“I’ve already told you that the body
obeys the mind. Normally, at my death,
I shall recreate my body in a plane re¬
moved from this one. But suppose my
thoughts upon the moment of death are
entirely concentrated on returning to
this plane at a date one week after execu¬
tion? That would be April twenty-first.
I believe I might thereby return to con¬
front Hart.”
“Do you know you can do this?”
“No; but it seems logical to assume
that I can. Since the future, after
death, is on another plane, I cannot tell
whether my plan would work or not.
As I have told you, Hart oeases to be in
my future time from the moment I die,
unless I can change the course of Time
and thereby do something unique. I
guess I—”
Carson broke off as the door opened
suddenly and Hart Cranshaw came in.
He threw down his hat casually.
“Sorry I’m late, boys, but I got held
up at an Extraordinary Board Meeting
—” He broke off. “What’s wrong, Dick?
Feeling faint?”
Dick Glenbury did not answer. He
was staring at the clock. It was exactly
ten minutes to eleven.
“He’s okay,” Blake Carson said
quietly, turning. “Just had a bit of a
shock, that’s all. I’ve been taking a look
into the future, Hart, and I’ve discov¬
ered plenty that isn’t exactly agreeable.”
“Oh?” Hart Cranshaw looked
thoughtful for a moment, then went on,
“Matter of fact, Blake, it strikes me
that I’ve been none too cordial towards
you considering the brilliance of the
thing you have achieved. I’d like to
know plenty more about this invention
if you’d tell me.”
“Yes, so you can steal it!” Dick Glen¬
bury shouted suddenly, leaping to his
feet. “That’s your intention. The fu¬
ture has shown that to Blake already.
And you’ll try and kill me in the doing.
But you’re not going to. By heavens,
no! So Time can’t be cheated, Blake?
We’ll see about that.”
He raced for the door, but he did not
reach it. Hart Cranshaw caught him by
the arm and swung him back.
“What the devil are you raving
about?” he snapped. “Do you mean to
say I intend to murder you?”
“That is why you came here, Hart,”
Carson declared quietly. “Time doesn’t
lie, and all your bluster and pretended
innocence makes not the least difference
to your real intentions. You figure to
do plenty with this invention of mine.”
“All right, supposing I do?” Hart
Cranshaw snapped, suddenly whipping
an automatic from his pocket. “What
are you going to do about it?”
Blake Carson shrugged. “Only what
immutable law makes me do!”
“To blazes with this!” Dick Glenbury
shouted suddenly. “I’m not standing
here obeying immutable laws—not when
my life’s in danger. Hart, drop that
gun!”
Hart Cranshaw only grinned frozenly.
In desperation Glenbury dived for him,
caught his foot in a snaking cable on
the floor and collided with the physicist.
Whether it was accident or design
Blake Carson could not be sure at the
74
STARTLING STORIES
moment, but the automatic certainly
exploded.
M ART CRANSHAW stood in mo¬
mentary silence as Dick Glenbury
slid gently to the floor and lay still.
Blake Carson’s eyes shifted to the clock
—eleven-nine!
At length Hart Cranshaw seemed to
recover himself. He held his automatic
more firmly.
“Okay, Blake, you know the future,
so you may as well know the rest—”
“I do,” Blake Carson interrupted him.
“You are going to pin this thing on me.
You shot Dick deliberately.”
“Not deliberately: it was an accident.
It just happened to come sooner than
I’d figured, that’s all. With both of you
out of the way what is to prevent me be¬
coming even the master of the whole
world with this gadget of yours? Noth¬
ing !” Hart Cranshaw gave a grim smile.
“I planned it all out, Blake. For to¬
night I have a cast iron alibi. It will
be your task to prove yourself innocent
of Dick Glenbury’s murder.”
“I won’t succeed: I know that al¬
ready.”
Hart Cranshaw eyed him queerly.
“Considering what I have done—and
what I am going to do—you’re taking it
mightly calmly.”
“Why not? Knowledge of the future
makes one know what is inescapable—
for both of us.” Blake Carson spoke
the last words significantly.
“I’ve checked on my future already
and I know darn well I’m in for a good
time. Hart Cranshaw retorted. He pon¬
dered for a moment then motioned with
his gun. “I’m taking no chances on you
wrecking this machinery, Blake. I’d
shoot you first and alibi myself out of
it afterwards, only I don’t want things
to get too complicated. Grab the ’phone
and call the police. Confess to them
what you have done.”
With resigned calm Blake Carson
obeyed. When he was through Hart
Cranshaw nodded complacently.
“Good. Before the police arrive I’ll
be gone, leaving you this gun to explain
away. Since I have kept my gloves on
it puts me in the clear for fingerprints
even though there won’t be any of yours
about. Just the same only you and Dick
have been here together tonight. I have
been elsewhere. I can prove it.”
Blake Carson smiled grimly. “Then
later you will pose as my sympathetic
friend, will offer to look after my work
while I am in custody, and save yourself
by good lawyers and your cast-iron alibi.
That’s clever, Hart. But remember, to
everything there is an appointed time!”
“Right now,” Hart Cranshaw an¬
swered in his conceited assured tones,
“the future looks quite rosy so far as I
am concerned . . .”
Inevitably the law enacted every in¬
cident Blake Carson had already fore¬
seen. Once in the hands of the police,
cross-examined relentlessly, he saw all
his chances of escape vanish. Carson
was convicted of first degree murder,
and the Court pronounced the death
sentence. The trial had proceeded in
record time, as the murder was consid¬
ered flagrant, and newspapers denounced
Carson bitterly. To the horror of Car¬
son’s lawyer, he refused to take an ap¬
peal or resort to the usual methods of
delay. Carson’s attitude was fatalistic,
and he could not be moved in his seem¬
ing determination to die.
In his cell Blake spent most of his
time between sentence and execution
brooding over the facts he had gleaned
from his experiments. In the death
house in prison he was certainly a model
prisoner, quiet, preoccupied, just a little
grim. His whole being was as a matter of
fact built up into one fierce, unwaver¬
ing concentration—the date of April
twenty-first. Upon his mastery of ele¬
mental forces at the point of death de¬
pended his one chance of changing the
law of time and confronting Hart Cran¬
shaw with the impossible, a return from
death.
Not a word of his intentions escaped
him. He was unbowed on the last morn¬
ing, listened to the prison chaplain’s
brief words of solace in stony silence,
then walked the short length of dim
corridor, between guards, to the fatal
chamber. He sat down in the death chair
WANDERER OF TIME
75
with the calm of a man about to preside
over a meeting.
T HE buckles on the straps clinked
a little, disturbing him.
He hardly realised what was going
on in the somber, dimly lighted place.
If his mental concentration concerning
April twenty-first had been strong be¬
fore, now it had become fanatical. Rigid,
perspiration streaming down his face
with the urgency of his thoughts, he
waited. . .
He felt it then—the thrilling, binding,
racking current as it nipped his vitals,
then spread and spread into an infinite
snapping anguish in which the world
and the universe was a brief blazing
hell of dissolution. . . .
Then things were quiet — oddly
quiet. . . .
He felt as though he were drifting in
a sea without substance—floating alone.
His concentration was superseded now
by a dawning wonder, indeed a striving
to come to grips with the weird situa¬
tion in which he found himself.
He had died—his body had—he was
convinced of that. But now, to break
these iron bands of paralysis, that was
the need!
He essayed a sudden effort and with
it everything seemed to come abruptly
into focus. He felt himself snap out
of the void of in-between into normal—
or at least mundane—surroundings. He
stirred slowly. He was still alone, lying
on his back on a somber, chilly plain
of reddish dust. It occasioned him
passing surprise that he was still dressed
in the thin cotton shirt and pants of a
prisoner.
A biting chill in the air went suddenly
to his marrow. He shuddered as he got
to his feet and looked down at himself.
“Of course. I held my clothes in
thought as much as my body, so they
were bound to be recreated also. . . .”
Baffled, he stared about him. Over¬
head the sky was violet blue and pow¬
dered with endless hosts of stars. To the
right was a frowning ridge of higher
ground. And everywhere, red soil. Time
—an infinitely long span—had passed.
With a half cry he turned and ran
breathlessly towards the ridge, scram¬
bled up the rubbly slope quickly. At
the top he paused, appalled.
A red sun, swollen to unheard-of size,
was bisected by the far distant jagged
horizon—a sun to whose edge the stars
themselves seemed to reach. He was old
now, unguessably old, his incandescent
fires burned out.
“Millions of years, quintillons. of
years,” Blake Carson whispered, sitting
down with a thump on an upturned rock
and staring out over the drear, somber
vastness. “In heavens name, what have
I done? What have I done?”
He stared in front of him, forced him¬
self by superhuman effort to think calm¬
ly. He had planned for one week beyond
death. Instead he had landed here, at
the virtual end of Earth’s existence,
where age was stamped on everything.
It was in the scarcely moving sun which
spoke of Earth’s near-standstill from
tidal drag. It was in the red soil, the fer¬
rous oxide of extreme senility, the rust¬
ing of the metallic deposits in the ground
itself. It was in the thin air which had
turned the atmospheric heights violet-
blue and made breathing a sheer agony.
And there was something else too
apart from all this which Blake Carson
had only just begun to realise. He could
no longer see the future.
“I cheated the normal course of after¬
death,” he mused. “I did not move to
neighboring plane there to resume a
continuation of life, and neither did I
move to April twenty-one as I should
have done. It can only mean that at the
last minute there was an unpredictable
error. It is possible that the electricity
from the chair upset my brain planning
and shifted the focus of my thoughts so
that I was hurled ahead, not one week—
but to here. And with that mishap I
also lost the power to visualize the fu¬
ture. Had I died by any other way but
electricity there might not have been
that mistake.”
76
STARTLING STORIES
'WH’E shuddered again as a thin, ice-
charged wind howled dismally out
of the desolate waste and stabbed him
through and through. Stung into move¬
ments, once more, he got up. Protect¬
ing his face from the brief, slashing hur¬
ricane he moved further along the ridge
and gazed out over the landscape from a
different vantage. And from here there
was a new view. Ruins, apparently.
He began to run to keep himself warm,
until the thin air flogged his lung to
bursting point. At a jog trot he moved
on towards the mighty, hardly moving
sun, stopped at last within the shadow
of a vast, eroded hall.
It was red like everything else. With¬
in it were the ponderous remains of dust-
smothered machinery, colossi of power
long disused and forgotten. He stared
at them, unable to fathom their smallest
meaning. His gaze traveled further—
to the crumbled ruins of mighty edifices
of rusting metal in the rear. Terrace
upon terrace, to the violet sky. Here it
seemed was a rusting monument to Man's
vanished greatness, with the inexplicable
and massive engines as the secret of his
power . . .
And Man himself? Gone to other
worlds? Dead in the red dust? Blake
Carson shook himself fiercely at the in¬
escapable conviction of total loneliness.
Only the stars, the sun, and the wind—
that awful wind, moaning now softly
through the ruins, sweeping the distant
corner of the horizon into a mighty cloud
that blacked out the brazen glitter of the
northern stars.
Blake Carson turned at last. At the
far end of the ruins his eye had caught
a faint gleam of reflection from the
crimson sun. It shone like a diamond.
Baffled, he turned and hurried towards
it, found the distance was deceptive and
that it was nearly two miles off. The
nearer he came the more the bright¬
ness resolved itself into one of six mas¬
sively thick glass domes some six feet
in diameter.
In all there were eight of them dotted
about a little plateau which had been
scraped mainly free of rubble and stone.
It resembled the floor of a crater with
frowning walls of rock all round it.
Mystified, Carson moved to the nearest
dome and peered through.
In that moment he forgot the melan¬
choly wind and his sense of desperate
loneliness—for below was life! Teeming
life! Not human life, admittedly, but at
least something that moved. It took him
a little while to adjust himself to the
amazing thing he had discovered.
Perhaps two hundred feet below the
dome, brightly lighted, was a city in
miniature. It reminded him of a model
city of the future he had once seen at
an exposition. There were terraces,
pedestrian tracks, towers, even aircraft.
It was all there on an infinitely minute
scale, and probably spread far under the
earth out of his line of vision.
But the teeming hordes were—ants.
Myriads of them. Not rushing about
with the apparent aimlessness of his own
time, but moving with a definable, or¬
dered purpose. Ants in a dying world?
Ants with their own city?
“Of course,” he whispered, and his
breath froze the glass. “Of course. The
law of evolution—man to ant, and ant
to bacteria. Science has always visu¬
alized that. This I could never have
known about for the future I saw was
not on this plane . . .”
And Hart Cranshaw? The scheme of
vengeance? It seemed a remote plan
now. Down here was company—intel¬
ligent ants who, whatever they might
think of him, would perhaps at least talk
to him, help him . . .
Suddenly he beat his fists mightily
on the glass, shouted hoarsely.
There was no immediate effect. He
beat again, this time frenziedly, and the
scurrying hordes below suddenly paused
in their movement as though uncertain.
Then they started to scatter madly like
bits of dust blown by the wind.
“Open up!” he shouted. “Open up.
I’m freezing.”
He was not quite sure what happened
then, but it seemed to him that he went
a little mad. He had a confused, blurred
notion of running to each dome in turn
and battering his fists against its smooth,
implacable surface.
WANDERER OF TIME
77
W IND, an endless wind, had turned
his blood to ice. At last he sank
down on an cratjutting rock at the pla¬
teau edge, buried his head in his hands
and shivered. An overpowering desire
to go to sleep was upon him, but pres¬
ently it passed as he became aware of new
thoughts surging through his brain,
mighty thoughts that were not his own.
He saw, in queer kaleidoscopic fashion,
the ascent of man to supreme heights:
he saw too man’s gradual realization
that he was upon a doomed world. He
saw the thinning of the multitudes and
the survival of the fittest—the slow, in¬
exorable work of Nature as she adapted
life to suit her latest need.
Like a panorama of the ages, hur¬
dling great vistas of time, Blake Carson
saw the human body change into that of
the termite, of which the termite of his
own time was but the progenitor, the
experimental form, as it were. The ter¬
mites, invested with more than human
intelligence, had formed these under¬
ground cities themselves, cities replete
with every scientific need and requiring
but little of the dying Earth so small
were they. Only underground was there
safety from the dying atmosphere.
Yes, Nature had been clever in her
organization and would be even cleverer
when it came to the last mutation into
bacteria. Indestructible bacteria which
could live in space, float to other worlds,
to begin anew. The eternal cycle.
Carson looked up suddenly, puzzled
as to why he should know all these
things. At what he beheld he sprang to
his feet, only to sit down again as he
found his legs were numbed with cold.
There was a small army of ants quite
close to him, like a black mat on the
smooth red of the ground. Thought
transference! That was how he had
known. The truth had been forced into
his mind deliberately. He realised it
clearly now for there came a bombard¬
ment of mental questions, but from such
a multitude of minds that they failed
to make any sense.
“Shelter,” he cried. “Food and
warmth—that is what I want. I have
come out of Time—a wanderer—and it
was an accident that brought me here.
You will regard me as an ancient type,
therefore I am surely useful to you. If I
stay out here the cold will soon kill me.”
“You created your own accident,
Blake Carson,” came one clear wave of
thought. “Had you died as the Time-
law proclaimed you would have passed
on to the next stage of existence, the
stage apart from this one. You chose
instead to try and defeat Time in order
that you might enact vengeance. We,
who understand Time, Space, and Life,
see what your intentions were.
“You cannot have help now. It is the
law of the cosmos that you must live
and die by its dictates. And death such
as you will experience this time will
not be the normal transition from this
plane to another but transition to a
plane we cannot even visualise. You
have forever warped the cosmic line of
Time you were intended to pursue. You
can never correct that warp.”
Blake Carson stared, wishing he could
shift his icebound limbs. He was dying
even now, realised it clearly, but interest
kept his mentality still alert.
“Is this hospitality?” he whispered.
“Is this the scientific benevolence of an
advanced age? How can you be so piti¬
less when you know why I sought
revenge?”
“We know why, certainly, but it is
trivial compared to your infinite trans¬
gression in trying to twist scientific
law to your own ends. Offense against
science is unforgivable, no matter what
the motive. You are a throwback, Blake
Carson—an outsider! Especially so to
us. You never found Hart Cranshaw,
the man you wanted. You never will.”
Blake Carson’s eyes narrowed sud¬
denly. He noticed that as the thoughts
reached him the body of ants had
receded quite a distance, evidently giv¬
ing up interest in him and returning to
their domain. But the power of the
thoughts reaching him did not diminish.
A BRUPTLY he saw the reason for
it. One termite, larger than the
others, was alone on the red soil. Carson
gazed at it with smoldering eyes, the
STARTLING STORIES
innermost thoughts of the tiny thing
probing his brain.
“I understand,” he whispered. “Yes,
I understand! Your thoughts are being
bared to me. You are Hart Cranshaw.
You are the Hart Cranshaw of this age.
You gained your end. You stole my
invention—yes, became the master of
science, the lord of the Earth, just as
you had planned. You found that there
was a way to keep on the normal plane
after each death, a way entirely success¬
ful if death did not come by electrocu¬
tion. That was what shattered my
plan—the electric chair.
“But you went on and on, dying and
being born again with a different and
yet identical body. An eternal man,
mastering more and more each time!”
Carson’s voice had risen to a shriek.
Then he calmed. “Until at last Nature
changed you into an ant, made you the
master of even the termite community.
How little did I guess that my discov¬
ery would hand you the world. But if I
have broken cosmic law, Hart Cran¬
shaw, so have you. You have cheated
your normal time action, time and again,
with numberless deaths. You have
stayed on this plane when you should
have moved on to others. Both of us
are transgressors. For you, as for me,
death this time will mean the unknown.”
A power that was something other
than himself gave Blake Carson
strength at that moment. Life surged
back into his leaden limbs and he stag¬
gered to his feet.
“We have come together again, Hart,
after all these quintillons of years.
Remember what I said long ago? To
everything there is an appointed time?
Now I know why you don’t want to
save me.”
He broke off as with sudden and fan¬
tastic speed the lone termite sped back
towards the mass of his departing col¬
leagues. Once among them, as Carson
well knew, there would be no means of
identification.
With this realisation he forced him¬
self into action and leaped. The move¬
ment was the last he could essay. He
dropped on his face, and his hand closed
round the scurrying insect. It escaped.
He watched it run over the back of his
hand—then frantically across his palm
as he opened his fingers gently.
He had no idea how long he lay watch¬
ing it—but at last it ran to the tip of his
thumb. His first finger closed on his
thumb suddenly—and crushed.
He found himself gazing at a black
smear on thumb and finger.
He could move his hand no further.
Paralysis had gripped his limbs com¬
pletely. There was a deepening, crush¬
ing pain in his heart. Vision grew dim.
He felt himself slipping—
But with the transition to Beyond he
began to realise something else. He had
not cheated Time! Neither had Hart
Cranshaw! They had done all this
before somewheres—would do it again—
endlessly, so long as Time itself should
exist. Death—transition—rebirth—evo¬
lution—back again to the age of the
amoeba—upwards to man—the labora¬
tory—the electric chair. . . .
Eternal. Immutable!
Can’t Keep Grandma
in Her Cfiair
She’s as Lively as a Youngster —Now her Backache is better
Thumbnail Sketches of Great Men and Achievements
By OSCAR J. FRIEND
THE MAN WITH TELESCOPIC EYES
The Story of Tycho Brahe, Pioneer of Astronomy
V T WAS just last year—May, 1943—that
the entire civilized world commemorated
the passing away four hundred years
previous of Nicholas Copernicus, the man
who reversed the direction astronomy had
been following from ancient times. We have
dealt with Copernicus and his “Revolutions
of Heavenly Bodies” some time ago in this
Now let us step forward three years from
the date of Copernicus’ death and consider
the arrival—by birth—in Knudstrup, Swedish
Scania, at that time a Danish province, of a
man who spurned the revolutionary dis¬
coveries of the “mad Copernicus,” and who
leaned toward the erroneous Ptolemic theory,
yet upon whose work modern astronomy is
firmly based.
Tycho Brahe was born in 1546, the oldest
boy in a family of ten. Oddly enough he was
reared, not by his parents, but by a childless
uncle, the brother of his lawyer father, and
a wealthy man. At thirteen, Tycho entered
the University of Copenhagen, a typical sort
of boy you would expect as reared by a
doting uncle. He evinced little interest in
school or a legal career and took life as it
came in a harum-scarum way.
Then, on August 21, 1560, he woke up. His
awakening was caused by an eclipse of the sun
which was visible in Copenhagen. Eclipses
were not unknown by this time. All enlight¬
ened people knew what they were and how
they came about—when they happened. But
what started this fourteen-year-old Scandi¬
navian lad to thinking was the fact that the
eclipse had been predicted with absolute ac-
This made such a deep impression on the
boy that he firmly resolved right then that
he would learn enough about mathematics
and astronomy to make such accurate predic-
Unfortunately, he secured Ptolemy’s works
on astronomy instead of the more accurate
and comparatively recent works of Coperni¬
cus. Thus, Ptolemy steered him wrong in
theory at this impressionable age, but Ptole¬
my at least riveted Tycho’s interest on the
sky.
While Tycho never could quite reconcile
himself to Copernicus’ theories—and you
must remember that he was forced to study
the heavens without a telescope and with
only crude homemade instruments—he early
found discrepancies in the actual positions
of the planets and those positions set down
in all the books he could find on the subject.
This was intolerable and maddening to
the methodical youth, so he began to make
observations with all the accuracy at his
command and to keep notes on his own find¬
ings.
As he grew older and learned more, he was
able to make and procure better tools, but
TYCHO BRAHE
he never had an opportunity to look at the
heavens through a lens. Bear this in mind.
Tycho Brahe had to rely on his naked eyes
for all his observations.
This was no real drawback, because this
young Dane had a fine pair of optics, and he
knew how to use them. When he was nine¬
teen he went to the University of Rostock,
where he leaped into a position of undesir¬
able fame. Recalling the eclipse which had
started him on his astronomical career, when
an eclipse of the moon was due, Tycho turned
prophet. He proclaimed publicly that this
eclipse of the moon foretold the death of the
sultan of Turkey.
Just why he did this, we do not know. But
Tycho Brahe always did the unexpected thing,
and he loved to startle people.
The trouble with this little cosmic joke
was that in due time came the news of the
sultan’s death.
Instantly Tycho leaped into prominence as
a prophet, probably surprising him as much as
anyone else. He became a popular hero, a man
of destiny.
And tiien came the later word, placing
the death of the sultan prior to the eclipse,
whereupon the new prophet’s fame turned
into cheap notoriety and ridicule. Having
what we nowadays call color and stage pres¬
ence, Tycho Brahe turned to alchemy and
astrology.
He might have fallen deep into these by¬
paths and traps and wasted his life if the
stars had not again interfered. This time, one
evening in November, 1572, Tycho was watch¬
ing the sky with his usual painstaking ac¬
curate gaze when he discovered a brand-new
star in Cassiopeia.
Doubting his own judgment, Tycho
watched this phenomenon for night after
night, and called on his coachman for corrob¬
oration. Receiving it, he watched the new
star wax brighter and brighter until it rivaled
the planet Jupiter in brilliance. Then it
waned, gradually fading and disappearing.
But it had this bearing; it drew Tycho
Brahe firmly back to his first love. Thence¬
forth the great Dane studied the night skies
and made elaborate observations, taking
copious notes.
Tycho Brahe was blessed with a fine pair
of eyes and a sheer genius for painstaking
accuracy. Most of his work was tne correc¬
tion of hundreds of errors that had been part
of the star tables for hundreds and hundreds
of years. And his observations were so
thorough that to this day his work is still
the admiration of scientists.
At the time of his death in October, 1601,
he had accurately charted the positions and
observable movements of seven hundred and
seventy-odd stars. He had made navigation
a science of accuracy and safety for seafar¬
ing men, he had fathered modern astronomy
by setting the proper method of astronomical
work. A man without conjectural imagina¬
tion, he left theory to others while he laid
down the fundamental facts and placed the
solid foundation upon which Isaac Newton
and John Kepler were to build their mar¬
velous scientific structures.
Tycho’s greatest work, “Astronomiae In-
stauratae Progymnasmata,” was edited by
John Kepler after his death and was published
in two volumes in Prague in 1602-03, but the
complete publication of his observations had
to wait until Kepler could arrange for it
years later.
Tycho Brahe, the man with the methodical
mind and telescopic eyes, with accuracy for
his fetish, had compiled astronomical records
so nearly exact that the most delicate modern
instruments used by scientists yield little
margin of correction. Astonishing as it
seems, Tycho Brahe was the first modern as¬
tronomer.
MATHEMATICIAN OF THE SKIES
Johann Kepler, the Lawmaker of the Heavens
W E HAVE just taken a brief peek into
the life of the man who viewed the
heavens with telescopic eyes, who recorded
observable facts and data with an accurate
mind, but who did not bring forth any deduct¬
ible or new theory. We have said that Tycho
Brahe laid the foundation upon which other
men reared magnificent structures.
On December 27, 1571, there was born pre¬
maturely at Weil, Wurttemburg, a boy baby
to the Kepler family. To this child they
gave the name Johann.
Johann, handicapped with a bad start in
life, went on to make his progress the hard
way. When he was four years old he sur¬
vived a siege of smallpox which left him
with crippled hands and eyesight permanent¬
ly injured. But he lived. Nothing, it seemed,
could kill him.
And nature did compensate for many things
she had done to him. For to John Kepler
she gave a brain that far transcended his
earthly ills. John Kepler grew to be the
mathematical giant of the astronomical world
of his day.
He could not spend night after night study¬
ing the heavens. He couldn’t even see well
enough to study the stars with the naked
eyes. But he could read the works of other
men, and best of all he could think. When,
after finishing his university course at Maul-
broon, he was offered the job as professor of
astronomy at Gratz, he reluctantly took the
post. Astronomy was not his forte. Mathe¬
matics was his love.
Nevertheless, as methodical in his own way
as Tycho Brahe had been in his, Kepler
started studying his subject. The subject
fascinated him.
Here was magnificent scope indeed for his
mathematical genius. You must remember
that when Kepler started studying astronomy
seriously a great many things we accept as
common knowledge today had not even been
thought about.
For instance, men knew there were five
planets at least and that they somehow re¬
volved about the sun, but nobody knew their
orbits, their rates of speed, or why they
speeded up or went into retrograde motion.
Kepler set out to understand and explain
this perplexing business. With his mathemat¬
ics he theoretically projected the five regular
solids into the celestial sphere and tried to
fit the movements of the five known planets
to these geometrical figures. Every one
seemed to work except the planet Mars to
which he had ascribed the dodecahedron. No
matter what he did, he couldn’t make Mars fit.
He simply could not exactly chart Mars’ orbit
around the sun.
Which is why he approached his wife one
day and said abruptly:
“Madam, we are going to Prague.”
“And why, may I ask?” demanded Frau
Kepler in astonishment.
“Because Tycho Brahe is there.”
“But you don’t know him. Tycho Brahe
has never set eyes on you.”
“I know that,” admitted Kepler ^doggedly,
“but I must see his figures on Mars.”
And that was that. Already Brahe’s repu¬
tation for accuracy had made him a famous
man. And to him at Prague on the eve of
the seventeenth century John Kepler went.
He became the great man’s assistant.
This, for the astronomical world, was the
most happy alliance in mankind’s history of
the stars; Brahe, the telescopic eye, and Kep¬
ler, the mathematical brain. Each man beau-
JOHANN KEPLER
tifully complemented the other. Brahe sup¬
plied the accurate data, and Kepler’s monu¬
mental brain proceeded to build foolproof
theories from it.
Tycho Brahe’s sudden death in 1601 dis¬
solved that partnership, but Brahe left to his
physically frail friend and assistant all of his
notes on the movements of heavenly bodies.
All that he asked was that Kepler arrange
them in proper order and give them to the
world. This Kepler solemnly promised to do,
and in 1602-03 the first edition of Tycho
Brahe’s greatest work was published at
Prague.
But this was not a sufficient monument to
the master astronomer. Kepler resolved to
publish a complete and accurate edition of
Brahe’s works. First he had to correlate and
arrange all of Tycho’s notes and data. Then
he had to raise money for publication, while
one thing after another arose to intervene.
Meanwhile the Kepler family had to eat.
Thus, it was twenty-six years before John
Kepler could keep his full promise to Tycho
Brahe, but he did so in 1627 when he finally
managed to arrange to have Tycho’s complete
tables—called the Rudolphine Tables—print¬
ed at Ulm. During the interim Kepler man¬
aged to add data of enough stars to make the
tables cover one thousand and five stars.
But we started to consider Kepler’s pursuit
of the orbit of Mars. He got the figures of
Tycho to work with, but he still could not
figure out the eccentricities of the planet’s
motions. He tried a circle, as the most per¬
fect form. When this didn’t work, he flat¬
tened it out to make an oval. He simply
couldn’t make Mars come closer than eight
minutes to its actual period of rotation.
This was crazy, because he knew that Brahe
was never eight minutes wrong in an obser¬
vation. Therefore, the error had to be his,
Kepler’s—not Brahe’s.
He wrote reams of figures, and never got
the right answer. Until the night he sat back
exhausted and merely stared miserably at
the hundreds of figures of his work. Sud¬
denly he was struck by the similarity of two
sets of figures—1.00429 and .00429. To us
that means nothing, but to Kepler it made
sense. One was the greatest optical in¬
equality of Mars; the other was half the dis¬
tance between an ellipse and a circle.
Interpreted in the light of Tycho Brahe’s
data, Kepler finally figured out that planets
move in ellipses with the sun in one focus.
He went beyond this. By cold mathematics
he proved that the straight line joining a
planet to the sun sweeps out equal areas in
any two equal intervals of time.
To these two great and clarifying laws he
finally added a third—that the squares of
the periodic times of the planets are pro¬
portioned to the cubes of the mean distances
from the sun.
Although John Kepler did other great
things, wrote many fine treatises on astron¬
omy, even improving Galileo’s telescope by
figuring out that two convex lenses should
be used so there could be a real image where
measuring wires could be used for reference,
he is known chiefly for establishing those
three great laws of astronomical truth. On the
accurate foundation laid by Tycho Brahe
he erected an edifice of mathematical fact
which has given him the title “Law-maker of
the Heavens.”
There remained but for Isaac Newton to
explain the laws of gravity, and the day of
modern astronomy based on absolute facts
would have dawned.
THE BRIDGE BUILDER
A Spider's Web Inspires a Great Engineering Feat
H IS name was Tom, and he was born
to a staymaker’s wife in the village
of Thetford, England, on January 29,
1737. The number, 37, might be said to have
had some mystical effect on this boy’s life,
for the first thirty-seven years of it didn’t
take him very far along the road to fame
By the time he was thirty-seven years old,
Tom had been kicked out of Excise twice, had
pretty well made a failure of commercial
business, and had separated from his wife.
Rather a sorry beginning for a man who had
shown no particularly outstanding talent in
life beyond a certain flair for writing.
But there was one significant occurrence.
In the thirty-seventh year David Williams,
principal of a boys’ school at Chelsea, intro¬
duced Tom to Benjamin Franklin. This
proved to be the turning point in the life of
Tom Paine.
Armed shortly thereafter with letters of
introduction from Franklin, Tom turned his
face westward and sought a new beginning
in the new world. He sailed for America,
this thwarted man of medium height, prom¬
inent nose and brilliant dark eyes.
Of his ups and downs and the course of his
literary career every schoolboy in America
should be well aware and thoroughly in¬
formed. For Tom Paine was the real father
of the American Revolution. For while Ben
Franklin remained at the Court of St. James,
working for peace, he had inadvertently sent
to America a firebrand whose writings were
to focus and crystallize the thoughts and ideas
of the colonists on the conception of a new
republic with full rights for all men.
“The Crisis,” “The Age of Reason,” “The
Rights of Man" are but a few of the fiery
works that flew from Tom Paine’s pen like
sparks from an emery wheel to set the fire of
freedom and independence alight in the
Americas.
But this account deals not with the man
of political and literary fame; it deals with
that little-known schoolboy in Thetford who
lay in the meadow grass, who crouched in
the corner of the barn, who peered wide-eyed
at the rosebush in the early morn.
What was young Tom Paine doing? Of all
things, he was studying a spider’s web. The
be-dewed spider web under the rosebush,
beaded with condensation moisture and look¬
ing like a delicate centerpiece of rare old
lace, had taken his eyes because of its sym¬
metrical beauty. The spider webs in the
barn and in the meadow had taken his eye
because of their receptive strength in spite
of their frailty.
More than once he had noted the size of
insects trapped in the delicate webs and had
marveled, not at the way the sticky, silken
strands clung to the victim, but how sturdily
the structure of the web withstood the fran¬
tic struggles for release.
Each abuttment, every diagonal strand,
each arch seemed designed to put forth the
most in structural strength with the least
weight or waste material.
“Boy, what are you staring at?” his puzzled
father often asked him.
“Just a spider web.” Tom would answer,
and the staymaker would snort in fatherly
disgust.
But that spider web followed young Tom
Paine through his boyhood and across the
broad Atlantic Ocean. It followed him
through his youth when he gazed upon the
British prisons and the many “wrongs” of
It followed him when he cast his eyes
upon the great and massive stone structures
that men built in England, in France, in
America. It lived in the back of his head
when he met the learned Dr. Franklin. It
was with him every time he crossed the
great London Bridge.
But the conscious thought of a bridge was
not in his head, all the time he was living
and growing wiser and preparing himself to
build the greatest kind of a bridge for man¬
kind to trod upon as they passed across from
the shores of tyranny and oppression to the
headlands of freedom.
Until that day in the 1780s when he stood
on the bank of a little Connecticut stream
and watched some workmen laboriously re¬
building a heavy stone pier of a highway
bridge which had fallen into disrepair. And
that day the great idea came to him.
“Why not build a bridge of iron?” he asked
the foreman of the working crew.
This man stared at the great man in amaze¬
ment. It was all well enough for the fiery
Thomas Paine to write literary papers about
the rights of men, but why should he poke
fun at honest laboring men in the hot sun.
“And where. Master Paine,” the foreman
finally asked, “would you get solid blocks
of iron to waste in building bridges when
stone is so much easily and cheaply pro¬
cured?”
Thomas Paine narrowed his suddenly spar¬
kling eyes and glanced from the foreman to
the bridge pier and back again. “From spider
webs,” he answered cryptically, and set off
for his home at a fast pace.
The result of this incident was a violent
departure from the style of bridge building
which had been standard for centuries. Tom
Paine drew up the plans for a bridge of iron
beams and braces that was radical in de¬
sign. Instead of solid beams and blocks he
used geometrical figures for skeletal struc-
In 1787 Thomas Paine sailed for Europe,
taking with him the model of his iron bridge.
His chief desire was to repeat his American
success with words of flame that would set
the Old World free. He did not class him¬
self as a great inventor and probably did
not realize how far-reaching his iron bridge
plans were. He stirred up a hornet’s nest in
England with his “Rights of Man,” causing
William Pitt to admit privately that he was
right before he was prevailed upon by pru¬
dent friends to leave the country.
But he stayed long enough to receive a
patent for his new bridge from the British
Government. In 1788 the British Govern¬
ment granted Thomas Paine Patent No. 1667
on the structure of an iron bridge. In his
specifications, Paine definitely explained that
(Concluded on page 110)
THE SERUM
RUBBER
MAN
By FORD SMITH
Those Two Crackpot Scientists,
Jeremiah Doodle and Tobias
P/ast, Bounce into Our Midst!
|EING general manager for, and
, general nursemaid to, a pair'
of absent-minded scientists like
Jeremiah Doodle and Tobias Plast is no
boy’s job, take it from me. There are,
times when I am definitely positive the,-
laboratory at Highboy Park, New Jer¬
sey, is really a maniac asylum—with me ;
the inmate!
For instance, there was the odor as¬
sailing my nostrils that Monday morn¬
ing as I inserted my key in the outer
door of the main lab building. It washed
all thoughts of lovely spring weather
and Lydia out of my mind. It smelled
like a stew of old rubber boots in a sul-Jx'‘|*
phide gravy. The stench grew stronger -
as I climbed to my second-floor office.
I started the ventilator fans imme-
diately, but before I could begin a tour
of apprehensive investigation, the door - '
to the chemical lab opened and the two
elderly men came running into the office,
bringing a fresh wave of abomination ^ f
with them.
“Is that you. Harry?” exclaimed the
foremost, wiping at the mist on his
thick, horn-rimmed glasses. "Ah, so it
is. My boy, we’ve done it at last!”
“So I smell,” I answered a bit tartly.
“You’ve set fire to the equipment
again.”
“Not at all, Jordan, not at all,” beamed
the second character. "Your Uncle Jere¬
miah and I have finally perfected that
new rubber serum formula.”
“What are you two crackpots doing
STARTLING STORIES
84
here?” I demanded angrily. “I person¬
ally took both of you home Saturday
afternoon and left you safely in the
bosom of your respective and respectable
families. What—”
“Now, Harry,” interrupted Jeremiah
Doodle. “Just because you are our mana¬
ger and my only sister’s child doesn’t
entitle you to scold us like this.”
Perhaps meantime, I’d better introduce
the two high wizards of Highboy Park
right here. Reading from left to right,
the short and fat little gent with the
thick glasses, bald head and spade beard
is Dr. Jeremiah Doodle, my uncle.
Don’t blame me. The tall and lean in¬
dividual with the high cranium and
general air of detached befuddlement
is Professor Tobias Plast, the uncle of
my fiancee, Lydia Browning.
Both rich, both research scientists,
lifelong friends and equally eccentric,
they are at once the delight and bane
of my existence. In the hands of the
worldly minded they are babes. In the
laboratory they are geniuses. Unpre¬
dictable wizards, anyway.
“But what are you doing here? What
have you done?” I demanded.
“We had to come back yesterday morn¬
ing to continue our work, Harry,” Uncle
Jeremiah explained apologetically. “You
see, in view of the rubber crisis, we
have been working with the lowly milk¬
weed.”
“Yes. I know,” I said unfeelingly.
“You milked the milkweed, and what
did you get? Sap!"
U NCLE JEREMIAH DOODLE
raised his hands in holy horror.
“You shouldn’t use slang, Jordan,” re¬
proved Tobias Plast. “I constantly have
to admonish Lydia. You young people!
But go on, Jeremiah, tell him what we
did.”
“Ah, yes.” said Uncle Jeremiah, nod¬
ding sagely. “We have done far more
than we expected, Harry. Instead of
proceeding along the lines of discover¬
ing how to extract and make rubber,
we—ah—inadvertently got switched over
into an amazingly interesting line of
research. You remember that baby
squirrel one of the lab workers found
on the grounds last week? Show him
the squirrel, Tobias.”
Professor Plast fished in one of his
baggy pockets and drew forth what ap¬
peared to be the tiny gray rodent. He
started to hold it forth and dropped it.
Instead of scampering away, the thing
bounced like a rubber ball, and the pro¬
fessor lunged forward and caught it in
midair. It squeaked and struggled as he
held it out.
“You see, Nippy—we call the squirrel
Nippy—was scampering around the
laboratory table where we were working
the other day—Thursday, I think it was
—we have the date and hour in our notes
—and it fell into a beaker of one of our
experiments,” explained the professor.
“We fished him out at once and dried
him off. But the result is—as you see.
Outwardly, Nippy has turned into a sub¬
stance akin to rubber."
I examined the little squirrel more
critically. It was true. Although quite
alive and animate, the little rodent’s skin
and fur had taken on a rubbery con¬
sistency. It was like poking at a tennis
ball.
“I still don’t believe it,” I said flatly.
“Neither did we,” agreed Uncle Jere¬
miah sagely. “That is, not at first.”
“No,” said Tobias in his absentminded
way. “So we began a series of new ex¬
periments with Nippy.”
“The result of which is that we have
perfected what we call the Doodleplast
Rubber Serum,” added Uncle Jeremiah
proudly. “It works on all living, animate
objects. By a careful system of hypo¬
dermic injection which we have worked
out, we can turn the skin and muscles
and sinews of any living thing into a
substance that is remarkably like rubber
—without injury to bodily functions or
impairment in any way. Don't you see
what a marvelous step we have taken in
the solution of our national rubber prob¬
lem?”
“No,” I said flatly, “I don’t.”
“That’s why we had to work yester¬
day and last night,” added Professor
Plast. “We’ve been making a supply of
the serum.”
THE SERUM RUBBER MAN
“You are exasperatingly short-sighted
at times, Harry,” declared Uncle Jere¬
miah. “With the use of the new Doodle-
plast serum the world won’t need rub¬
ber any longer. Horses can be innocu-
lated with the serum and do the work of
ten horses because they will be tireless,
resistant to wear and tear. Soldiers can
be treated, and they can march and fight
for days on end. All motorized vehicles
will be—”
“If you’re trying to tell me you can
shoot this dope of yours into a flock of
cats and dogs and harness them to the
axles of cars and trucks in lieu of rub¬
ber tires, I think you’re crazy.”
“Why not?” asked Professor Plast
mildly. “They would be tireless.”
“So would the trucks,” I rejoined
acidly. “How would you coordinate any
sort of animals—to make them work in
unison like four rubber tires, I mean—if
the serum would work?”
“The serum does work,” stated the
professor, abstractedly dropping the
squirrel again and pointing at the little
animal bouncing a couple of times before
it could control itself. It finally scamp¬
ered away in long, rubbery leaps, to my
amazement and its own.
“Maybe Harry has something there,
Tobias,” admitted Uncle Jeremiah
thoughtfully. “Perhaps we will run
into difficulties in gearing four animals
to behave like tires. But it is such a
pity. There would be a hundred per
cent saving in gasoline, too.”
“Fiddlesticks!” snorted Plast. “Don’t
they hitch Alaskan huskies in the
Yukon?”
“Not as wheels,” I reminded him.
"Only a couple of dizzy birds like you
two could dream up one like that.”
“Ah, yes,” admitted the professor
mildly, scratching his high dome. “I be¬
lieve that was your—ah—suggestion,
Jordan.”
I choked and reddened. Arguing with
these two was like riding a merry-go-
round.
I opened my mouth then to suggest
that they go home and have breakfast
and get some sleep, but Uncle Jeremiah
wasn’t through.
T HERE was more coming. I could
hardly wait.
“There still remains the successful
business of inoculating our fighting
men,” Uncle began brightening.
“Doodleplast rubber serum will make
them invincible fighters. And the ef¬
fect lasts at least ten days without
fresh innoculation. All we do is—”
“All you have to do is find somebody
crazy enough to submit to a test of your
serum,” I said. “And that will prove
practically impossible.”
“Oh, no,” Uncle Jeremiah went on,
smiling beatifically as he polished his
glasses. “We already have A subject.”
“What?”
“In the laboratory,” he added, nodding
toward the room from which the
exhaust-fans had practically sucked all
the foul air—I hoped so, anyway.
My heart seemed to clog my throat as
I envisioned all sorts of horrible calami¬
ties. “Do you two maniacs mean to say
you’ve captured a human being and shot
some of this untried and unproven serum
into him?”
“Not exactly," Uncle Jeremiah
hastened to soothe me. “Don’t get
alarmed, Harry. Mr. Dugan was quite
willing to undergo the experiment, in
view of a substantial cash settlement.”
“Not to mention the unlawful activity
at which we surprised him,” added the
professor.
“Who is this Dugan?” I demanded
quickly. “Did you get him to sign a
release? Oh, my lord, what a mess!”
“It’s quite all right, my boy,” assured
Uncle Jeremiah. “You see, we caught
Mr. Dugan—Butch, I think is his Chris¬
tian name—inadvertently trying to bur¬
glarize the laboratory. He didn’t ex¬
pect to find a couple of elderly scien¬
tists working here Sunday night. After
he came to, and we explained things—”
“After he came to?” I grated out.
“Tobias had to hit him over the head
with a retort,” said Uncle Jeremiah,
glancing at me a bit apprehensively. “He
was threatening me with a revolver.”
“That was not the retort courteous,” I
answered, making a bum out of the Bard
of Avon.
STARTLING STORIES
I couldn’t stand any more. “Let’s see
this Butch Dugan,” I continued. “Show
Obediently, they led the way into their
chemical lab. On a cleared space on the
central table lay the body of a man in an
ordinary dark blue business suit. I ad¬
vanced and took one look at his face.
He lay perfectly still, inert, and his skin
was a pasty gray color—like an uncooked
pretzel.
Hastily I grabbed at his wrist. I could
detect no pulse and it was like grasping
a piece of rubber hose.
“Good lord!” I groaned. “Maybe
you’ve killed this man. How much of
that stuff did you shoot into him?”
Professor Plast rubbed his chin re¬
flectively. “Calculated on the weight and
energy units of Nippy, we gave Mr.
Dugan about half the serum required for
an adult human. We estimate that it
will hold him five days if it takes full
effect.”
“If it takes effect?” I almost shouted.
“Look at him! He looks like a doormat
for an undertaking establishment. I’ve
got to think fast to get you two out of
this mess.”
“He is all right, Harry,” insisted Uncle
Jeremiah. “It's the traumatic shock,
that’s all. Mr. Dugan will regain con¬
sciousness within the next—ah—ten min¬
utes.”
M AYBE it was my shouting. Any¬
way, the unconscious man on the
table drew a sobbing breath and stirred.
“Get some ammonia,” I ordered in¬
stantly. “That isn’t incompatible with
that goo you cooked up, is it?”
“No, no, certainly not,” said Uncle
Jeremiah, complying with my order. “I
told you that the bodily functions are
unchanged in any way save for the tem¬
porary change in surface conditions.”
I administered a teaspoonful of the
stimulant and held the bottle under
Dugan’s nose. He gagged and spluttered
quite normally, opened his eyes, and
struggled to sit up.
Mr. Dugan’s words were a quotation
from the classics, to wit:
“Who gimme dat mickey?” he choked
out indignantly as soon as he could
speak.
“Take it easy, chum,” I soothed him,
helping him to sit up. “You feel all
right now?”
“Sure, I do. I—” He broke off and
felt of his gray lips. Then he rapidly
patted his face and rubbed his gray
hands over his arms and body. “Hey!
No feelin’. Am I paralyzed? I feel like
a plate full of spaghetti. What did them
two crackpots do to me?”
“Everything is all right—I hope,” I
assured him quickly. “Now, before we
go any further in this experiment. Mr.
Dugan, if you will just accompany me
into my office where I will make out a
contract for you to sign—”
“I ain’t signin’ nothin’, see,” inter-
rlpted Dugan promptly. “These two
geezers promised me five century
notes for takin’ their dope, and I want
me money—in cash—now.”
“You shall have it as soon as I open
the safe. Dugan,” I promised. “But this
is a scientific experiment, and it is cus¬
tomary and legal to make contracts in
such cases. I shall draw up a contract
at once between you and Doodleplast,
Incorporated, and then I’ll pay you.”
“Now,” objected Dugan stubbornly,
still pinching and poking at himself. “I
ain’t signin’ nothin’ till I see me doctor
and me mouthpiece.”
I cocked my fist desperately. “You
sign, or I’ll turn you over to the police
for breaking into Highboy Park ille¬
gally.”
Dugan scowled and made a grab for
me. So I let him have it, smack on the
chin. The result surprised us both. My
fist rebounded as though I had struck a
rubber punching bag. It was exactly the
sort of feeling you get when you ex¬
perimentally kick a rubber tire, only I
had so much steam in by blow that the
rebound staggered me.
Dugan flew backward head over heels
from the table, landed in a sprawled
position on the floor, bounced three feet
in the air, and then scrambled madly—
getting to his feet like a man mounted
on a pair of live springs. The expres¬
sion on his face was ludicrous, but I had
THE SERUM RUBBER MAN
87
no time to enjoy it. Dugan’s signature
on a release contract was worth plenty
of money to us right now.
So I started around the table to grab
He let out a howl and began to run.
He bounced high at the first step, floated
sideward against a bench of equipment
to smash some small odds and ends and
overturn the little vat of rubber serum.
He caromed off just as Uncle Jeremiah
and Professor Plast gave vent to cries
of dismay.
Landing on the floor again, Dugan
made a despairing leap toward the win¬
dowed wall. Again he miscalculated the
resiliency of his new-found mode of
locomotion, and he crashed through the
nearest window. Clutching helplessly at
the frame, he dropped out of sight just
as I made a futile dive to grab him.
There was a concrete areaway below,
and I groaned as I visioned the twenty-
foot drop. I heard the thud as Dugan
hit, and I was just staring gingerly out
through the shattered window glass
when Dugan sailed back into view. He
had bounced, unhurt, nearly twenty feet
up into the air, but too far away for me
to get a hand on him. As I watched
helplessly he hit the ground farther
away and then went bouncing and leap¬
ing in erratic fashion across the grounds
toward the ten-foot stone wall which
surrounded Highboy Park.
Mike Harrigar., the gate guard, rushed
over to intercept Dugan and froze in
incredulous astonishment as the serum
rubber man bounded over his head and
neatly cleared the wall.
Uncle Jeremiah set up a plaint. “He
destroyed all of our serum, Tobias. All
our work has gone for naught.”
“Never mind that.” I said. “Is there an
antidote for that stuff?”
“We don’t know,” admitted the pro¬
fessor absently, surveying the extent of
the damage. ‘We haven’t considered the
need for one.”
“Well, start considering,” I snapped.
“Ami work out something quick. That
crook has escaped, and do you realize
that he can sue Doodleplast for every¬
thing we’ve got, not to mention a good
chance of collecting?”
“What are you going to do, Harry?”
asked Uncle Jeremiah.
“I’m going right back into my office
and concoct an ironclad contract for
Butch Dugan. Then I’ll go out, hunt
him down and make him sign it if I have
to use a vulcanizing machine to threat¬
en him with. You two rubber geniuses
get to work on that antidote.”
E YES that stared behind thick glasses
stared amazedly at me.
“Why?” asked Uncle Jeremiah mildly.
“The effect of the serum will wear off
in four or five days, and Mr. Dugan will
be just as he was before, which is noth¬
ing to brag about.”
“If he doesn’t get us or himself into
a lot of trouble before then,” I growled.
“You get to work while I do the same.”
Two hours later I had completed draw¬
ing up and typing an agreement that
would hold water in any court. I had
already dispatched Mike Harrigan to
trail Butch Dugan and kept him in sight,
reporting back by telephone.
Now I grabbed my hat, stuffed the
agreement in my pocket, and was ready
to head for Jersey City where Mike had
last reported bouncing from. I paused
in the doorway of the chemical labora¬
tory. The two wizards were bent in¬
tently over a table and up to their ears
in retorts and crucibles. I smiled a bit
fondly although grimly.
“Found anything yet” I asked.
Both of them looked up in absent-
minded fashion.
“Ah—yes,” said Uncle Jeremiah. “An
amazing thing, Harry. We—ah—got ac¬
cidentally switched from the antidote
serum to a fusion of silicon and milk¬
weed sap that will make noiseless hard¬
ware to take the place of metal. You see,
Nippy was—”
“Confound it!” I roared. “I want that
antidote so I can save—”
The violent ringing of the telephone
on my desk interrupted me. I rushed
over and grabbed the instrument.
“Mr. Jordan?” asked an agitated bass
voice. “This is the Jersey City Police
Department. We have a peculiar case
STARTLING STORIES
here—a petty crook by the name of
Butch Dugan. We’ve got him in a cell,
and he is bouncing around the walls like
a golf ball and shouting a lot of gibber¬
ish about you people there at Highboy
Park. Your man Harrigan is here and
asked me to call you.”
“Thank you, Sergeant,” I said weakly.
“How—why—what did Dugan do that
caused you to pick him up?”
T HE desk sergeant told me, and I
choked.
“Okay,” I finally articulated. “I’ll be
right down to straighten the matter out.”
I put down the transceiver and walked
thoughtfully back to the chemical lab¬
oratory doorway. I had to shout to get
the attention of Uncle Jeremiah and the
professor. They turned slightly annoyed
faces toward me.
“I give up,” I admitted manfully.
“You’ve got something big in that rub¬
ber serum idea. Better get busy and
make a fresh batch of it while I go down
and bail Butch out of jail.”
“Make up a fresh batch?” repeated
Uncle Jeremiah helplessly. “How can
we? Mr. Dugan upset the last batch on
our notes and obliterated them.”
“And we don’t remember just how we
made the serum,” added Professor Plast
sadly. “However, this new idea of fused
silicon will be of greater benefit to hu¬
manity as it will dispense with all metal
fittings and—”
“What? You’ve lost that formula?” I
was aghast.
“Mr. Dugan lost it for us,” said Uncle
Jeremiah, pointing sadly to the mess on
the floor. Then he brightened. “Did
you say he was in jail, Harry?”
“That is excellent,” observed Profes¬
sor Plast thoughtfully. “He struck me
as being an irresponsible sort of chap.”
“You struck him, Tobias,” corrected
Uncle Jeremiah mildly. “Why did the
police arrest Mr. Dugan, Harry?”
“For trying to pass a rubber check,” I
answered. “I’ve got to spring him before
they send him up for a stretch, or he’ll
bounce a law suit right into our laps.
Don’t set the laboratory on fire before
I get back.”
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STARTLING WAR
News and Notes from the
t
Science Front
G ilding the ocean to -mark the spot-
—Pale gold-bronze patches floating on
the surface of the sea may soon mark the
spot where an enemy submarine was last seen
so that searching destroyers will know where
to drop their depth bombs or bombing planes
lay their deadly eggs.
This is only one possible use of a marking
bomb of pressed paper-pulp containing bronze
powder, fluorescing compounds or other ma¬
terials conspicuous on water on which a
patent was recently granted to Lieutenant
Commander Pliny G. Holt of Philadelphia.
The idea is for “look-see” planes to drop
these marking bombs on water or other unsub¬
stantial surfaces like snow or thin ice. Thus
heavier air or surface following will be able
to get into action more quickly and effective¬
ly. The spots can also be used as bombing
practice targets.
S OUND-EFFECTS MACHINE TO GIVE AXIS
JITTERS—Early in the Pacific war, the Japs
used to set off firecrackers to dupe Allied
troops into believing machine-guns were open¬
ing up against them. The same principle, but
with embellishments added, has been devel¬
oped into a handy, light machine by inven¬
tors Alfred Groth and H. J. Hanauer to draw
enemy artillery fire at the wrong targets. It
not only makes plenty of noise, but also fakes
cannon flashes and explosions visually.
G lider torpedo carries own weight—
A gyroscope-controlled glider torpedo is
the invention of H. A. Gurney of Encino,
California. Once launched, automatic con¬
trols hold the winged missile on a true line
against its target. A feature of the projectile
is its suspension beneath the carrying plane
in such a manner that its wings provide neces¬
sary lift during flight. This, according to
Gurney, will enable light, fast planes to carry
heavy explosive missiles into action.
C OMPRESSED AIR COOLS MACHINE-GUN—
Hubert Scott-Paine and R. W. Jaggard,
both Englishmen, have invented a new method
of cooling machine-guns with compressed air
instead of the conventional liquid and atmos¬
pheric cooling methods now in use.
Escape of air in the flask in which it is
provided at a pressure of .100 pounds per
square inch or over is controlled by a valve
governed by the barrel’s temperature. The
weapon weighs much less than a water-
jacketed Browning and does not require the
frequent changes of barrel of the conventional
air-cooled gun.
S pins wheels to prevent plane spins—
Ingenious use of the gyroscopic principle
to prevent planes from going into dangerous
flat spins is proposed by J. D. Wilhoit of
Chicago and N. F. Huber of Louisville.
Anyone who has played with a toy gyro¬
scope knows how hard it is to push the spin¬
ning wheel from its original position. The
two inventors convert their plane’s landing
wheels into gyroscopes by use of motors to
rotate them in the reverse of their usual di¬
rection. This, they claim, tends to get this
spin-threatened plane out of danger.
DARGAIN-BASEMENT BOMB—Cheapness and
" ease of manufacture are among the vir¬
tues of an anti-personnel bomb developed by
John Nahirney of Detroit. His missile con¬
sists simply of a cylindrical casing with
pointed nose and the needed steadying fins
near the tail.
Within is a cylindrical container for the
explosive, carrying a detonating fuse in its
nose. The annular space between the casing
and container is filled with bits of scrap or
metal slugs.
TWO-BOAT TRANSPORT FOR BULLDOZERS—
* Andrew J. Higgins, famous New Orleans
builder of landing barges, has developed a
new method of getting heavy machinery such
as bulldozers, big tanks and heavy cannon
into action faster. Lashing two stoutly built
pontoon units, connected by a platform under¬
slung on a U-shaped framework between
them, he utilizes the forward part, which can
be elevated at will, as an auxiliary bow to
keep waves out of the way while at sea.
When the double craft is beached, this part
can be lowered to form a landing ramp.
PENICILLIN INCREASE VITAL WAR WEAPON—
• Penicillin, doubled and redoubled, is Amer¬
ica's bid for a quick win against infection and
disease among our fighting men. So rapidly
did production facilities expand in 1943 that
two-fifths of all the penicillin turned out last
year was produced in December alone.
Quantities of the magic drug for civilian use
will still be highly limited, however. The
U. S. Department of Agriculture warns against
attempts to “produce penicillin in the kitchen.’’
Molds thus cultured are usually worthless and
may even be dangerous through growth of
“wild" contaminating organisms.
BEVOilD THE SIHGinG FLflmE
By CLARK ASHTON SMITH
In a Flight to the Inner Dimension, Philip Hastane, Interspace
Explorer, Discovers the Fountain of Cosmic Energy!
CHAPTER I
Journey Into Space
W HEN I, Philip Hastane, save to the
world the journal of my friend Giles
Angarth, I was still doubtful as to
whether the incidents related therein were
fiction or verity. The trans-dimensional ad¬
ventures of Angarth and Felix Ebbonly, the
City of the Flame with its strange residents
and pilgrims, the immolation of Ebbonly, and
the hinted return of the narrator himself for
a like purpose after making the last entry in
his diary, were very much the sort of thing
that Angarth might have imagined in one of
the fantastic novels for which he had become
so justly famous.
Add to this the seemingly impossible and
incredible nature of the whole tale, and my
hesitancy in accepting it as veridical will
easily be understood.
However, on the other hand, there was the
unsolved and eternally recalcitrant enigma
offered by the disappearance of the two men.
Both were well known, the one as a writer,
the other as an artist; both were in flourish-
ing circumstance.-., with no serious cares or
troubles. Tin ir vanishment, all things con-
side: ed, was difficult to explain on the ground
of any motive unusual or extraordinary
i!n.i the one assigned in the journal.
At fns‘. as I have hinted in my foreword
. o the published diary. I thought that the
whole affair might well have been devised
as a somewhat elaborate practical joke. But
this theory became less and les3 tenable as
weeks and months went by and linked them¬
selves slowly into a year, without the reap¬
pearance of the presumptive jokers.
Now, at last, I can testify to the truth of
ul that Angarth wrote—-and more. For I too
have been in Ydmos, the City of Singing
Flame, and have known also the supernal
glories rod raptures of the Inner Dimension.
And of these T must toll, however falter-
ingly and slumbiiagly, with meie human
things which neither I nor any other shall
behold or experience again. Ydmos itself is
now a riven ruin, and the temple of the Flame
has been blasied ,o ivs foundations in the
basic rock, and the fountain of singing fire has
been st; ickc n at i: . u; ce. The Inner Dimen¬
sion has perished like a broken bubble, in the
great war that was made upon Ydmos by the
rulers of the Outer Lunds- • • -
After editing and pul-dishing Angaxth's
journal, 1 was unable uo r-rget the peculiar
and tantalizing pro.bl ms it had raised. The
vague but infinitely ivc vistas opened
by the tale were such as to haunt my imagi¬
nation recurrently with a hint of half-revealed
or hidden mysteries. I was troubled by the
possibility of some great mystic meaning be¬
hind it all—some cosmic actuality of which
the narrator had perceived merely the exter¬
nal veils and fringes.
As time went on, I found myself pondering
it perpetually. And more and more I was
possessed by an overwhelming wonder, and
a sense of something which no mere fiction
weaver would have been likely to invent.
ffil THE early summer of 1941, after finish-
mg a new novel of interplanetary adven¬
ture, I felt able for the first time to take the
necessary leisure for the execution of a pro¬
ject that had often occurred to me. Putting
all my affairs in order, and knitting all the
loose ends of my literary labors and personal
correspondence in case I should not return,
I left Auburn ostensibly for a week’s vaca¬
tion. I went to Summit with the idea of in-
EDITOR'S NOTE
QOME stories are for-
gotten almost as soon
as they are printed.
Others stand the test
of time.
Because "Beyond the
Singing Flame," by Clark
Ashton Smith, has stood
this test, it has been nominated for SCIENTI-
FICTION'S HALL OF FAME and is reprinted
here.
In each issue we will honor one of the mest
outstanding fantasy classics of all time as se¬
lected by our readers.
We hope in this way to bring a new per¬
manence to the science fiction gems of yester¬
day and fo perform a real service fo the
science fiction devotees of today and to¬
morrow.
Nominate your own favorite! Send a letter
or postcard to The Editor, STARTLING
STORIES, 10 East 40th St., New York 16, N. Y.
All suggestions are more than welcome!
731, Gernsback Pub lice
vestigating closely the milieu in which An-
garth and Ebbonly had disappeared from
human ken.
With strange emotions, I visited the for¬
saken cabin south of Crater Ridge that had
been occupied by Angarth, and saw the rough,
home-made table of pine boards upon which
my friend had written his journal and had
left the sealed package containing it to be
forwarded to me after his departure.
There was a weird and brooding loneliness
about the place, as if the non-human infini¬
tudes had already claimed it for their own.
The unlocked door had sagged inward from
the pressure of high-piled winter snows, and
fir needles had sifted across the sill to strew
the unswept floor. Somehow, I know not
why, the bizarre narrative became more real
and more credible to me, as if an occult inti¬
mation of all that had happened to its author
still lingered around the cabin.
This mysterious intimation grew stronger
when I came to visit Crater Ridge itself, and
to search amid its miles of pseudo-volcanic
rubble for the two boulders so explicitly de¬
scribed by Angarth as having a likeness to
the pedestals of ruined columns.
Many of my readers, no doubt, will re¬
member his description of the Ridge. There
is no need to enlarge upon it with reiterative
91
92
STARTLING STORIES
detail, other than that which bears upon my
own adventures.
Following the northward path which An-
garth must have taken from his cabin, and
trying to retrace his wanderings on the long,
barren hill, I combed it thoroughly from end
to end and from side to side, since he had
not specified the location of the boulders.
After two mornings spent in this manner
without result, I was almost ready to aban¬
don the quest and dismiss the queer, soapy,
greenish-gray column-ends as one of An-
garth’s most provocative and deceptive fic-
It must have been the formless, haunting
intuition of which I have spoken that made
me renew the search on a third morning. This
time, after crossing and recrossing the hill¬
top for an hour or more, and weaving tortu¬
ously to and fro among the cicada-haunted
wild currant bushes and sunflowers on the
dusty slopes, I came at last to an open, cir¬
cular, rock-surrounded space that was totally
unfamiliar. I had somehow missed it in all
my previous roamings.
It was the place of which Angarth had
told. And I saw with an inexpressible thrill
the two rounded, worn-looking boulders that
were situated in the center of the ring.
I believe that I trembled a little with ex¬
citement as I went forward to inspect the
curious stones. Bending over, but not daring
to enter the bare, pebbly space between them,
I touched one of them with my hand, and re¬
ceived a sensation of preternatural smooth¬
ness, together with a coolness that was inex¬
plicable, considering that the boulders and
the soil about them must have lain unshaded
from the sultry August sun for many hours.
From that moment, I became fully per¬
suaded that Angarth’s account was no mere
fable. Just why I should have felt so certain
of this, I am powerless to say. But it seemed
to me that I stood on the threshold of an
ultra-mundane mystery, on the brink of un¬
charted gulfs.
I looked about at the familiar Sierran val¬
leys and mountains, wondering that they still
preserved their wonted outlines, and were
still unchanged by the contiguity of alien
worlds, were still untouched by the luminous
glories of arcanic dimensions.
Being convinced that I had indeed found
the gateway between the worlds, I was
prompted to strange reflections. What, and
where, was this other sphere to which my
friend had obtained entrance? Was it near
at hand, like a secret room in the structure of
space? Or was it, in reality, millions or tril¬
lions of light-years away by the reckoning of
astronomic distance, in a planet of some ul¬
terior galaxy?
After all, we know little or nothing of the
actual nature of space. Perhaps, in some
way that we cannot imagine, the infinite is
doubled upcn itself in places, with dimen¬
sional folds and tucks, and short-cuts where¬
by the distance to Algenib or Aldebaran is
merely a step. Perhaps, also there is more
than one infinity. The spectral “flaw” into
which Angarth had fallen might well be a
sort of super-dimension, abridging the cos¬
mic intervals and connecting universe with
universe.
However, because of this certitude that I
had found the inter-spheric portals, and could
follow Angarth and Ebbonly if I so desired,
I hesitated before trying the experiment. I
was mindful of the mystic danger and irre¬
fragable lure that had overcome the others.
I was consumed by imaginative curiosity, by
an avid, well-nigh feverish longing to behold
the wonders of this exotic realm; but I did
not purpose to become a victim to the opiate
power and fascination of the Singing Flame.
I stood for a long time, eyeing the old
boulders and the barren, pebble-littered spot
that gave admission to the unknown. At length
I went away, deciding to defer my venture
till the following morn. Visualizing the weird
doom to which the others had gone so volun¬
tarily and even gladly, I must confess that I
was afraid. On the other hand, I was drawn
by the fateful allurement that leads an ex¬
plorer into far places—and perhaps by some¬
thing more than this.
W SLEPT badly that night, with nerves and
brain excited by formless, glowing pre¬
monitions, by intimations of half-conceived
perils and splendors and vastnesses. Early
the next morning, while the sun was still
hanging above the Nevada Mountains, I re¬
turned to Crater Ridge.
I carried a strong hunting-knife and a Colt
revolver, and wore a filled cartridge-belt,
and also a knapsack containing sandwiches and
a thermos bottle of coffee. Before starting,
I had stuffed my ears tightly with cotton
soaked in a new anesthetic fluid, mild but ef¬
ficacious, which would serve to deafen me
completely for many hours. In this way, I
felt that I should be immune to the demoral¬
izing music of the fiery fountain.
I peered about on the rugged landscape
with its weird and far-flung vistas, wonder¬
ing if I should ever see it again. Then, re¬
solutely, but with the eerie thrilling and
shrinking of one who throws himself from a
high cliff into some bottomless chasm, I
stepped forward into the space between the
grayish-green boulders.
My sensations, generally speaking, were
similar to those described by Angarth in his
diary. Blackness and illimitable emptiness
seemed to wrap me round in a dizzy swirl as
of rushing wind or milling water, and I went
down and down in a spiral descent whose
duration I have never been able to estimate.
Intolerably stifled, and without even the
power to grasp for breath, in the chill, air¬
less vacuum that froze my very muscles and
marrow, I felt that I should lose conscious¬
ness in another moment, and descend into the
greater gulf of death or oblivion.
Something seemed to arrest my fall, and I
became aware that I was standing still, though
I was troubled for some time by a queer
doubt as to whether my position was vertical,
horizontal, or upside-down in relation to the
solid substance that my feet had encountered.
Then the blackness lifted slowly like a
dissolving cloud, and I saw the slope of violet
grass, the rows of irregular monoliths run¬
ning downward from where I stood, and the
gray-green columns near at hand. Beyond was
BEYOND THE SINGING FLAME
93
the titan, perpendicular city of red stone that
was dominant above the high and multi¬
colored vegetation of the plain.
It was all very much as Angarth had de¬
picted it. But somehow, even then, I became
aware of differences that were not immedi¬
ately or clearly definable, of scenic details and
atmospheric elements for which his accounts
had not prepared me. And, at the moment, I
was too thoroughly disequilibrated and over¬
powered by the vision of it all even to spec¬
ulate concerning the character of these dif¬
ferences.
As I gazed at the city with its crowding
tiers of battlements and its multitude of over¬
looming spires, I felt the invisible threads of
a secret attraction, was seized by an impera¬
tive longing to know the mysteries hidden
behind the massive walls and the myriad
buildings. Then,. a moment later, my gaze
was drawn to the remote, opposite horizon of
the plain, as if by some conflicting impulse
whose nature and origin were undiscoverable.
It must have been because I had formed
so clear and definite a picture of the scene
from my friend’s narrative that I was sur¬
prised and even a little disturbed as if by
something wrong or irrelevant, when I saw
in the far distance the shining towers of
what seemed to be another city—a city of
which Angarth had not spoken. The towers
rose in serried lines, reaching for many miles
in a curious arclike formation. They were
sharply defined against a blackish mass of
cloud that had reared behind them and was
spreading out on the luminous, amber sky in
sullen webs and sinister, crawling filaments.
Subtle disquietude and repulsion seemed to
emanate from the far-off, glittering spires,
even as attraction emanated from those of
the nearer city. I saw them quiver and pulse
with an evil light, like living and moving
things, through what I assumed some refrac¬
tive trick of the atmosphere. Then for an
instant, the black cloud behind them glowed
with dull, angry crimson throughout its whole
mass, and even its questing webs and tendrils
were turned into lurid threads of fire.
The crimson faded, leaving the cloud inert
and lumpish as before. But from many of
the vanward towers, lines of red and violet
flame had leaped like outthrust lances at the
bosom of the plain beneath them. They were
held thus for at least a minute, moving slowly
across a wide area, before they vanished.
In the spaces between the towers, I now
perceived a multitude of gleaming, restless
particles, like armies of militant atoms, and
wondered if perchance they were living be¬
ings. If the idea had not appeared so fantas¬
tical, I could have sworn even then that the
far city had already changed its position and
was advancing toward the other on the plain.
Apart from the fulguration of the cloud,
and the flames that had sprung from the tow¬
ers, and the quiverings which I deemed a re¬
fractive phenomenon, the whole landscape be¬
fore and about me was unnaturally still. On
the strange amber air of the Tyrian-tinted
grasses, on the proud, opulent foliage of the
unknown trees, there lay the dead calm that
precedes the stupendous turmoil of typhoonic
storm or seismic cataclysm.
The brooding sky was permeated with in¬
tuitions of cosmic menace, was weighed down
by a dim, elemental despair.
CHAPTER II
Into the Flame
A LARMED by this ominous atmosphere,
I looked behind me at the two pillars
which, according to Angarth, were the gate¬
way of return to the human world. For an
instant, I was tempted to go back. Then I
turned once more to the nearby city, and the
feelings I have just mentioned were lost in
an oversurging awesomeness and wonder.
I felt the thrill of a deep, supernal exalta¬
tion before the magnitude of the mighty
buildings. A compelling sorcery was laid
upon me by the very lines of their construc¬
tion, by the harmonies of a solemn architec¬
tural music. I forgot my impulse to return
to Crater Ridge, and started down the slope
toward the city.
Soon the boughs of the purple and yellow
forest arched above me like the altitudes of
Titan-builded aisles, with leaves that fretted
the rich heaven in gorgeous arabesques. Be¬
yond them, ever and anon, I caught glimpses
of the piled ramparts of my destination; but
looking back, in the direction of that other
city on the horizon, I found that its ful¬
gurating towers were now lost to view.
I saw, however, that the masses of the
great somber cloud were rising steadily on
the sky, and once again they flared to a
swart, malignant red, as if with some un¬
earthly form of sheet-lightning. And though
I could hear nothing with my deadened ears,
the ground beneath me trembled with long
vibrations as of thunder. There was a queer
quality in the vibrations, one that seemed to
tear my nerves and set my teeth on edge
with its throbbing, lancinating discord, pain¬
ful as broken glass or the torment of a tight¬
ened rack.
Like Angarth before me, I came to the
paved cyclopean highway. Following it, in
the stillness after the unheard peals of thun¬
der, I felt another and subtler vibration,
which I knew to be that of the Singing Flame
in the temple at the city’s core. It seemed to
soothe and exalt and bear me on, to erase
with soft caresses the ache that still lingered
in my nerves from the torturing pulsations
of the thunder.
I met no one on the road, and was not
passed by any of the trans-dimensional pil¬
grims, such as had overtaken Angarth. And
when the accumulated ramparts loomed above
the highest trees, and I came forth from the
wood in their very shadow, I saw that the
great gate of the city was closed, leaving no
crevice through which a pygmy like myself
might obtain entrance.
Feeling a profound and peculiar discom¬
fiture, such as one would experience in a
dream that had gone wrong, I stared at the
grim, unrelenting blankness of the gate. It
seemed to be wrought from one enormous
94
STARTLING STORIES
sheet of somber and lusterless metal. Then
I peered upward at the sheerness of the wall,
which rose above me like an alpine cliff, and
saw that the battlements were seemingly de¬
serted.
Was the city forsaken by its people, by the
guardians of the Flame? Was it no longer
open to the pilgrims who came from outlying
lands to worship the Flame, and to immo¬
late themselves? With curious reluctance,
after lingering there for many minutes in
a sort of stupor, I turned away to retrace my
In the interim of my journey, the black
cloud had drawn immeasurably nearer, and
was now blotting half the heaven with two
portentous winglike formations. It was a
sinister and terrible sight and it lightened
again with that ominous wrathful flaming, with
a detonation that beat upon my deaf ears like
waves of disintegrative force, and seemed to
lacerate the inmost fibers of my body.
I hesitated, fearing that the storm would
burst upon me before I could reach the in¬
ter-dimensional portals. I saw that I should
be exposed to an elemental disturbance of
unfamiliar character and supreme violence.
Then, in mid-air, before the imminent,
ever-rising cloud, I perceived two flying crea¬
tures, whom I can compare only to gigantic
moths. With bright, luminous wings, upon
the eboft forefront of the storm, they ap¬
proached me in level but precipitate flight.
They would have crashed headlong against
the shut gate, if they had not checked them¬
selves with sudden and easy poise.
With hardly a flutter, they descended and
paused on the ground beside me, supporting
themselves on queer, delicate legs that
branched at the knee-joints in floating an¬
tennae and waving tentacles. Their wings
were sumptuously mottle webs of pearl and
madder and opal and orange, and their heads
were circled by a series of convex and con¬
cave eyes, and were fringed with coiling,
hornlike organs from whose hollow ends
there hung aerial filaments.
I was more than startled, more than
amazed by their aspect, but somehow, by
an obscure telepathy, I felt assured that their
intentions toward me were friendly. I knew
that they wished to enter the city, and knew
also that they understood my predicament.
Nevertheless, I was not prepared for what
happened. With movements of utmost cel¬
erity and grace, one of the giant mothlike be¬
ings stationed himself at my right hand, and
the other at my left. Then, before I could
even suspect their intention, they enfolded
my limbs and body with their long tentacles,
wrapping me round and round as if with
powerful ropes. Carrying me between them
as if my weight were a mere trifle, they rose
in air and soared at the mighty ramparts!
In that swift and effortless ascent, the
wall seemed to flow downward beside and
beneath us like a wave of molten stone.
Dizzily I watched the falling away of the
mammoth blocks in endless recession. Then
we were level with the broad ramparts, were
flying across the unguarded parapets and
over a canyonlike space toward the immense
rectangular buildings and numberless square
We had hardly crossed the walls, when a
weird and flickering glow was cast on the
edifices before us by another lightening of the
great cloud. The mothlike beings paid no ap¬
parent heed, and flew steadily on into the city
with their strange faces toward an unseen
goal. But, turning my head to peer backward
at the storm, I beheld an astounding and ap¬
palling spectacle.
U EYOND the city ramparts, as if wrought
by black magic or the toil of genii, an¬
other city had reared, and its high towers
were moving swiftly forward beneath the
rubescent dome of the burning cloud! A sec¬
ond glance, and I perceived that the towers
were identical with those I had beheld afar
on the plain. In the interim of my passage
through the woods, they had traveled over an
expanse of many miles by means of some un¬
known motive power, and had closed in on
the city of the Flame.
Looking more closely, to determine the
manner of their locomotion, I saw that they
were not mounted on wheels, but on short,
massy legs like jointed columns of metal,
that gave them the stride of ungainly colossi.
There were six or more of these legs to each
tower, and near the tops of the towers were
rows of huge eyelike openings, from which
issued the bolts of red and violet flame I
have mentioned before.
The many-colored forest had been burned
away by these flames in a league-wide swath
of devastation, even to the walls, and there
was nothing but a stretch of black, vaporing
desert between the mobile towers and the
city. Then, even as I gazed, the long, leap¬
ing beams began to assail the craggy ram¬
parts, and the topmost parapets were melt¬
ing like lava beneath them.
It was a scene of utmost terror and
grandeur but, a moment later, it was blotted
from my vision by the buildings among
which we had now plunged.
The great lepidopterous creatures who
bore me went on with the speed of eyrie-
questing eagles. In the course of that flight,
I was hardly capable of conscious thought
or volition. I lived only in the breathless
and giddy freedom of aerial movement, of
dreamlike levitation above the labyrinthine
maze of stone immensitudes and marvels.
Also, I was without conscious cognizance
of much that I beheld in that stupendous
Babel of architectural imageries. Only after¬
ward, in the more tranquil light of recollec¬
tion, could I give coherent form and meaning
to many of my impressions. My senses were
stunned by the vastness and strangeness of
it all.
I realized but dimly the cataclysmic ruin
that was being loosed upon the city behind
us, and the doom from which we were fleeing.
I knew that war was being made with un¬
earthly weapons and engineries, by inimical
powers that I could not imagine, for a pur¬
pose beyond my conception. But to me, it
all had the elemental confusion and vague,
impersonal horror of some cosmic catas¬
trophe.
We flew deeper and deeper into the city.
BEYOND THE SINGING FLAME
95
Broad platform roofs and terracelike tiers
of balconies flowed away beneath us, and
the pavements raced like darkling streams
at some enormous depth. Severe cubicular
spires and square monoliths were all about
and above us. On some of the roofs we saw
the dark, Atlantean people of the city, mov¬
ing slowly and statuesquely, or standing in
attitudes of cryptic resignation and despair,
v/ith their faces toward the flaming cloud.
All were weaponless, and I saw no engineries
anywhere, such as might be used for purposes
of military defense.
Swiftly as we flew, the climbing cloud was
swifter, and the darkness of its intermittently
glowing dome had overarched the town, its
spidery filaments had meshed the further
heavens and would soon attach themselves
to the opposite horizon. The buildings dark¬
ened and lightened with the recurrent fi¬
guration, and I felt in all my tissues the pain¬
ful pulsing of the thunderous vibrations.
Dully and vaguely, I realized that the
winged beings who carried me between them
were pilgrims to the temple of the Flame.
More and more I became aware of an in¬
fluence that must have been that of the starry
music emanating from the temple’s heart.
There were soft, soothing vibrations in the
air that seemed to absorb and nullify the
tearing discords of the unheard thunder. I
felt that we were entering a zone of mystic
refuge, of sidereal and celestial security, and
my troubled senses were both lulled and ex¬
alted.
The gorgeous wings of the giant lepidop-
ters began to slant downward. Before and
beneath us, at some distance, I perceived a
mammoth pile which I knew at once for the
temple of the Flame. Down, still down we
went, in the awesome space of the surround¬
ing square. Then I was borne in through the
lofty ever-open entrance, and along the high
hall with its thousand columns.
It was like some corridor in a Karnak of
titan worlds. Pregnant with strange bal¬
sams, the dim, mysterious dusk enfolded us.
We seemed to be entering realms of premun-
dane antiquity and transstellar immensity, to
be following a pillared cavern that led to
the core of some ultimate star.
It seemed that we were the last and only
pilgrims; and also that the temple was de¬
serted by its guardians. For we met no one
in the whole extent of that column-crowded
gloom. After awhile, the dusk began to
lighten, and we plunged into a widening beam
of radiance, and then into the vast central
chamber in which soared the fountain of
green fire.
I remember only the impression of shad¬
owy, flickering space, of a vault that was
lost in the azure of infinity, of colossal and
Memnonian statues that looked down from
Himalaya like altitudes. And, above all, the
dazzling jet of flame that inspired from a pit
in the pavement and rose in air like the vis¬
ible rapture of gods.
But all this I saw and knew for an in¬
stant only. Then I realized that the beings
who bore me were flying straight toward
the flame on level wings, without the slight¬
est pause or flutter of hesitation!
T HERE was no room for fear, no time
for alarm, in the dazed and chaotic tur¬
moil of my sensations. I was stupefied by
all that I had experienced. Moreover, the
druglike spell of the Flame was upon me,
even though I could not hear its fatal sing¬
ing. I believe that I struggled a little, by
some sort of mechanical muscular revulsion,
against the tentacular arms that were wound
about me. But the lepidopters gave no heed,
and it was plain that they were conscious
of nothing but the mounting fire and its se¬
ductive music.
I remember, however, that there was no
sensation of actual heat, such as might have
been expected, when we neared the soaring
column. Instead, I felt the most ineffable
thrilling in all my fibers, as if I were being
permeated by waves of celestial energy and
demiurgic ecstasy. Then we entered the
Flame.
Like Angarth before me, I had taken it
for granted that the fate of all those who
flung themselves in the Flame was an in¬
stant though blissful destruction. I expected
to undergo a briefly flaring dissolution, fol¬
lowed by the nothingness of utter annihila¬
tion. The thing which really happened was
beyond the boldest reach of speculative
thought, and to give even the meagerest
idea of my sensations would beggar the re¬
sources of language.
The Flame enfolded us like a green cur¬
tain, blotting from view the great chamber.
Then it seemed to me that I was caught and
carried to supercelestial heights in an up¬
ward-rushing cataract of quintessential force
and deific rapture and all-illuminating light.
It seemed that I, and also my companions,
had achieved a godlike union with the Flame;
that every atom of our bodies had undergone
a transcendental expansion, was winged with
ethereal lightness; that we no longer existed,
except as divine, indivisible entity, soaring
beyond the trammels of matter, beyond the
limits of time and space, to attain undream-
able shores.
Unspeakable was the joy, and infinite was
the freedom of that ascent, in which we
seemed to overpass the zenith of the high¬
est star. Then, as if we had risen with the
Flame to its culmination, had reached its
very apex, we emerged and came to a pause.
My senses were faint with exaltation, my
eyes were blind with the glory of the fire.
The world on which I now gazed was a vast
arabesque of unfamiliar forms, and bewilder¬
ing hues from another spectrum than the
one to which our eyes are habituated. It
swirled before my dizzy eyes like a labyrinth
of gigantic jewels, with interweaving rays
and tangled lusters. Only by slow degrees
was I able to establish order and distinguish
detail in the surging riot of my perceptions.
All about me were endless avenues of
super-prismatic opal and jacinth, arches and
pillars of ultra-violet gems, of transcendent
sapphire, of unearthly ruby and amethyst;
all suffused with a multi-tinted splendor. I
appeared to be treading on jewels; and above
me was a jeweled sky.
Presently, with recovered equilibrium, with
eyes adjusted to a new range of cognition,
96
STARTLING STORIES
I began to perceive the actual features of
the landscape. With the two mothlike be¬
ings still beside me, I was standing on a mil¬
lion-flowered grass, among trees of a para-
disal vegetation, with fruit, foliage, blos¬
soms and trunks whose very forms were be¬
yond the conception of tri-dimensional life.
The grace of their drooping boughs, of their
fretted fronds, was inexpressible in terms
of earthly line and contour. They seemed
to be wrought of pure, ethereal substance,
half-translucent to the empyrean light, which
accounted for the gemlike impression I had
first received.
I breathed a nectar-laden air. The ground
beneath me was ineffably soft and resilient,
as if it were composed of some higher form
of matter than ours. My physical sensa¬
tions were those of the utmost buoyancy
and well-being, with no trace of fatigue or
nervousness, such as might have been looked
for after the unparalleled and marvelous
events in which I had played a part.
I felt no sense of mental dislocation or
confusion. Apart from my ability to recog¬
nize unknown colors and non-Euclidean
forms, I began to experience a queer altera¬
tion and extension of tactility, through
which it seemed that I was able to touch
remote objects.
CHAPTER III
The Inner Dimension
T HE radiant sky was filled with many-
colored suns, like those that might shine
on a world of some multiple solar system.
But strangely, as I gazed, their glory became
softer and dimmer, and the brilliant luster
of the trees and grass was gradually sub¬
dued, as if by encroaching twilight.
I was beyond surprise, in the boundless
marvel and mystery of it all. Nothing, per¬
haps, would have seemed incredible. But
if anything could have amazed me or defied
belief, it was the human face—the face of
my vanished friend, Giles Angarth—which
now emerged from among the waning jewels
of the forest, followed by that of another
man whom I recognized from photographs
as Felix Ebbonly.
They came out from beneath the gorgeous
boughs and paused before me. Both were
clad in lustrous fabrics, finer than Oriental
silk, and of no earthly cut or pattern. Their
look was both joyous and meditative, and
their faces had taken on a hint of the same
translucency that characterized the ethereal
fruits and blossoms.
“We have been looking for you,” said
Angarth. “It occurred to me that after read¬
ing my journal, you might be tempted to
try the same experiments, if only to make
sure whether the account was truth or fic¬
tion. This is Felix Ebbonly, whom I be¬
lieve you have never met.”
It surprised me when I found that I could
hear his voice with perfect ease and clear¬
ness. I wondered why the effect of the drug-
soaked cotton should have died out so soon
in my auditory nerves. Yet such details
were trivial, in the face of the astounding
fact that I had found Angarth and Ebbonly;
that they, as well as I, had survived the un¬
earthly rapture of the Flame.
“Where are we?” I asked, after acknowl¬
edging his introduction. “I confess that I
am totally at a loss to comprehend what has
happened.”
“We are now in what is called the Inner
Dimension,” explained Angarth. “It is a
higher sphere of space and energy and mat¬
ter than the one into which we were pre¬
cipitated from Crater Ridge. The only en¬
trance is through the Singing Flame in the
city of Ydmos. The Inner Dimension is
born of the fiery fountain, and sustained by
it, and those who fling themselves into the
Flame are lifted thereby to this superior
plane of vibration. For them, the outer
worlds no longer exist. The nature of the
Flame itself is not known, except that it is
a fountain of pure energy, springing from
the central rock beneath Ydmos, *nd pass¬
ing beyond mortal ken by virtue of its own
ardency.”
He paused, and seemed to be peering at¬
tentively at the winged entities who still
lingered at my side. Then he continued:
“I haven’t been here long enough to learn
very much, myself, but I have found out
a few things. And Ebbonly and I have es¬
tablished a sort of telepathic communica¬
tion with the other beings who have passed
through the Flame. Many of them have no
spoken language, no organs of speech. Their
very methods of thought are basically dif¬
ferent from ours, because of their divergent
lines, of sense-development, and the varying
conditions of the worlds from which they
come. But we are able to communicate a
few images.
“The persons who came with you are try¬
ing to tell me something,” he went on. “You
and they, it seems, are the last pilgrims who
will enter Ydmos and attain the Inner Di¬
mension. War is being made on the Flame
and its guardians by the rulers of the Outer
Lands, because so many of their people have
obeyed the lure of the singing fountain and
have vanished into the higher sphere. Even
now their armies have closed in upon Ydmos,
and are blasting the city’s ramparts with
the force-bolts of their moving towers.”
I told him what I had seen, comprehend¬
ing now much that had been obscure here¬
tofore. He listened gravely, then said:
“It has long been feared that such war
would be made sooner or later. There are
many legends in the Outer Lands, concern¬
ing the Flame and the fate of those who
succumb to its attraction, but the truth is
not known, or is guessed only by a few.
Many believe, as I did, that the end is de¬
struction. By some who suspect its exist¬
ence, the Inner Dimension is hated, as a
thing that lures idle dreamers away from
worldly reality. It is regarded as a lethal
and pernicious chimera, or a mere poetic
dream, or a sort of opium paradise.
“There are a thousand things to tell you,
regarding the inner sphere, and the laws
BEYOND THE SINGING FLAME
and conditions of being to which we are
now subject, after the revibration of all our
component atoms and electrons in the Flame.
But at present there is no time to speak
further, since it is highly probable that we
are all in grave danger. The very existence
of the Inner Dimension, as well as our own,
is threatened by the inimical forces that are
destroying Ydmos.
“There are some who say that the Flame is
impregnable, that its pure essence will defy
the blasting of all inferior beams, and its
source remain impenetrable to the lightnings
of the Outer Lords. But most are fearful of
disaster, and expect the failure of the foun¬
tain itself when Ydmos is driven to the
central rock.
“Because of this imminent peril, we must
not tarry longer. There is a way which
affords egress from the inner sphere to an¬
other and remoter cosmos in a second in¬
finity—a cosmos unconceived by mundane
astronomers, or by the astronomers of the
worlds about Ydmos. The majority of the
pilgrims, after a term of sojourn here, have
gone on to the worlds of this other universe.
Ebbonly and I have waited only for your
coming before following them. We must
make haste, and delay no more, or doom will
overtake us.”
E VEN as he spoke, the two mothlike en¬
tities, seeming to resign me to the care
of my human friends, arose on the jewel-
tinted air and sailed in long, level flight above
the paradisal perspectives whose remoter
avenues were lost in glory. Angarth and Eb¬
bonly had now stationed themselves beside
me. One took me by the left arm, and the
other by the right.
“Try to imagine that you are flying,” said
Angarth. “In this sphere, levitation and flight
are possible through will-power, and you will
soon acquire the ability. We shall support
and guide you, however, till you have grown
accustomed to the new conditions, and are in¬
dependent of such help.”
I obeyed his injunction, and formed a
mental image of myself in the act of flying.
I was amazed by the clearness and verisimili¬
tude of the thought-picture, and still more by
the fact that the picture was becoming an ac¬
tuality! With little sense of effort, but with
exactly the same feeling that characterizes a
levitational dream, the three of us were soar¬
ing from the jeweled ground, were slanting
easily and swiftly upward through the glow¬
ing air.
Any effort to describe the experience would
be foredoomed to futility; since it seemed
that a whole range of ne<w senses had been
opened up in me, together with correspond¬
ing thought-symbols for which there are no
words in human speech. I was no longer
Philip Hastane, but a larger and stronger and
freer entity, differing as much from my
former self as the personality developed be¬
neath the influence of hashish or kava would
differ.
The dominant feeling was one of immense
joy and liberation, coupled with a sense of
imperative haste, of the need to escape into
other realms where the joy would endure
eternal and unthreatened. My visual percep¬
tions, as we flew above the burning, lucent
woods, were marked by intense aesthetic
pleasure.
It was as far above the normal delight af¬
forded by agreeable imagery as the forms
and colors of this world were beyond the
cognition of normal eyes. Every changing
image was a source of veritable ecstasy. The
ecstasy mounted as the whole landscape be¬
gan to brighten again and returned to the
flashing, scintillating glory it had worn when
I first beheld it.
We soared at a lofty elevation, looking
down on numberless miles of labyrinthine
forest, on long luxurious meadows, on volup¬
tuously folded hills, on palatial buildings, and
waters that were clear as the pristine lakes
and rivers of Eden. It all seemed to quiver
and pulsate like one living, effulgent, ethereal
entity, and waves of radiant rapture passed
from sun to sun in the splendor-crowded
heaven.
As we went on, I noticed again, after an
interval, that partial dimming of the light,
that somnolent, dreamy saddening of the col¬
ors, to be followed by another period of ecsta¬
tic brightening. The slow, tidal rhythm of
this process appeared to correspond to the
rising and falling of the Flame, as Angarth
had described it in his journal, and I suspected
immediately that there was some connec-
No sooner had I formulated this thought,
when I became aware that Angarth was speak¬
ing. And yet I am not sure whether he spoke,
or whether his worded thought was percepti¬
ble to me through another sense than that of
physical audition.
At any rate, I was cognizant of his com-
“You are right. The waning and waxing
of the fountain and its music is perceived in
the Inner Dimension as a clouding and light¬
ening of all visual images.”
Our flight began to swiften, and I realized
that my companions were employing all their
psychic energies in an effort to redouble our
speed.
The lands below us blurred to a cataract of
streaming color, a sea of flowing luminosity.
We seemed to be-hurtling onward like stars
through the fiery air.
The ecstasy of that endless soaring, the
anxiety of that precipitate flight from an un¬
known doom, are incommunicable. But I shall
never forget them, and never forget the state
of ineffable communion and understanding
that existed between the three of us. The
memory of it all is housed in the deepest
and most abiding cells of my brain.
Others were flying beside and above and
beneath us now, in the fluctuant glory; pil¬
grims of hidden worlds and occult dimensions,
proceeding as we ourselves toward that other
cosmos of which the Inner Sphere was the
ante-chamber.
These beings were strange and outre beyond
belief in their corporeal forms and attributes.
Yet I took no thought of their strangeness, but
felt toward them the same conviction of fra¬
ternity that I felt toward Angarth and Eb¬
bonly.
98
STARTLING STORIES
CHAPTER IV
Beyond the Flame
»TOW, as we still went on, it appeared to
T’ me that my two companions were tell¬
ing me many things; were communicating, by
what means I am not sure, much that they
had learned in their new existence. With a
grave urgency, as if perhaps the time for im¬
parting this information might well be brief,
ideas were expressed and conveyed which I
could never have understood amid terrestrial
circumstances. Things that were inconceiv¬
able in terms of the five senses, or in abstract
symbols of philosophic or mathematic
thought, were made plain to me as the let¬
ters of the alphabet.
Certain of these data, however, are roughly
conveyable or suggestible in language. I was
told of the gradual process of initiation into
the life of the new dimension, of the powers
gained by the neophyte during his term of
adaptation; of the various recondite aesthetic
joys experienced through a mingling and mul¬
tiplying of all the perceptions; of the con¬
trol acquired over natural forces and over
matter itself. Raiment could be woven and
buildings reared solely through an act of
volition.
I learned also of the laws that would con¬
trol our passage to the further cosmos, and
the fact that such passage was difficult and
dangerous for anyone who had not lived a
certain length of time in the Inner Dimen¬
sion. Likewise, I was told that no one could
return to our present plane from the higher
cosmos, even as no one could go backward
through the Flame into Ydmos.
Angarth and Ebbonly had dwelt long enough
in the Inner Dimension (they said) to be eli¬
gible for entrance to the worlds beyond. They
thought that I, too, could escape through
their assistance, even though I had not yet
developed the faculty of spatial equilibrium
necessary to sustain those who dared the in-
terspheric path and its dreadful subjacent
gulfs alone.
There were boundless, unforeseeable
realms, planet on planet, universe on uni¬
verse, to which we might attain, and among
whose prodigies and marvels we could dwell
or wander indefinitely. In these worlds, our
brains would be attuned to the comprehen¬
sion or apprehension of vaster and higher
scientific laws, and states of entity beyond
those of our present dimensional milieu.
I have no idea of the duration of our flight.
Like everything else, my sense of time was
completely altered and transfigured. Relative¬
ly speaking, we may have gone on for hours,
but it seemed to me that we had crossed an
area of that supernal terrain for whose transit
many years or centuries might well have been
required.
Even before we came within sight of it, a
clear pictorial image of our destination had
arisen in my mind, doubtless through some
sort of thought-transference. I seemed to en¬
vision a stupendous mountain range, with alp
on celestial alp, higher than the summer cum¬
uli of earth. Above them all was the horn of an
ultra-violet peak whose head was enfolded in
a spiral cloud, touched with the sense of
invisible chromatic overtone's, that seemed
to come down upon it from skies beyond the
zenith. I knew that the way to the outer
cosmos was hidden in the high cloud.
On, on, we soared, and at length the moun¬
tain range appeared on the far horizon and I
saw the paramount peak of ultra-violet with
its dazzling crown of cumulus. Nearer still we
came, till the strange volutes of cloud were
almost above us, towering to the heavens
and vanishing among the varicolored suns.
We saw the gleaming forms of pilgrims who
preceded us, as they entered the swirling
folds.
At this moment, the sky and the landscape
had flamed again to their culminating bril¬
liance. They burned with a thousand hues
and lusters, so that the sudden, unlooked-for
eclipse which now occurred was all the more
complete and terrible.
Before I was conscious of anything amiss,
I seemed to hear a despairing cry from my
friends, who must have felt the oncoming
calamity through a subtler sense than any of
which I was yet capable.
Then, beyond the high and luminescent alp
of our destination, I saw the mounting of a
wall of darkness, dreadful and instant and
positive and palpable, that rose everywhere
and toppled like some Atlantean wave upon
the irised suns and the fiery-colored vistas of
the Inner Dimension.
We hung irresolute in the shadotved air,
powerless and hopeless before the impend¬
ing catastrophe, and saw that the darkness
had surrounded the entire world and was
rushing upon us from all sides. It ate the
heavens, it blotted the outer suns, and the vast
perspectives over which we had flown ap¬
peared to shrink and shrivel like a blackened
paper. We seemed to wait alone for one ter¬
rible instant, in a center of dwindling light, on
which the cyclonic forces of night and destruc¬
tion were impinging with torrential rapidity.
The center shrank to a mere point—and
then the darkness was upon us like an over¬
whelming maelstrom—like the falling and
crashing of cyclopean walls. I seemed to
go down with the wreck of shattered worlds
in a roaring sea of vortical space and force,
to descend into some intrastellar pit, some
ultimate limbo to which the shards of for¬
gotten suns and systems are flung. Then,
after a measureless interval, there came the
sensation of violent impact, as if I had fallen
among these shards, at the bottom of the
universal night.
1 STRUGGLED back to consciousness with
slow, prodigious effort, as if I were
crushed beneath some irremovable weight,
beneath the lightless and inert debris of
galaxies. It seemed to require the labors of
a titan to lift my lids, and my body and
limbs were heavy as if they had been turned
to some denser element than human flesh or
had been subjected to the gravitation of a
grosser planet than the Earth.
My mental processes were benumbed and
BEYOND THE SINGING FLAME
painful and confused to the last degree, but
at length I realized that I was lying on a
riven and tilted pavement, among gigantic
blocks of fallen stone. Above me, the light
of a livid heaven came down among over¬
turned and jagged walls that no longer sup¬
ported their colossal dome. Close beside me,
I saw a fuming pit, from which a ragged rift
extended through the door, like the chasm
wrought by an earthquake.
I could not recognize my surroundings for
a time; but at last, with a toilsome groping
of thought, I understand that I was lying
in the ruined temple of Ydmos. The pit
whose gray and acrid vapors rose beside me
was that from which the fountain of sing¬
ing flame had issued.
It was a scene of stupendous havoc and
devastation. The wrath that had been visited
upon Ydmos had left no wall nor pylon of
the temple standing. I stared at the blighted
heavens from an architectural ruin in which
the remains of On and Angkor would have
been mere rubble heaps.
With herculean effort, I turned my head
away from the smoking pit, whose thin, slug¬
gish fumes curled upward in fantasmal coils
where the green ardor of the Flame had
soared and sung. Not until then did I per¬
ceive my companions. Angarth, still insen¬
sible, was lying near at hand. Just beyond
him I saw the pale, contorted face of Eb-
bonly, whose lower limbs and body were
pinned down by the rough and broken pedi¬
ment of a fallen pillar.
Striving as in some eternal nightmare to
throw off the Jeaden-clinging weight of my
inertia, and able to bestir myself only with
the most painful slowness and laboriousness, I
got somehow to my feet and went over to
Ebbonly. Angarth, I saw at a glance, was
uninjured, and would presently regain con¬
sciousness, but Ebbonly, crushed by the mono¬
lithic mass of stone, was dying swiftly. Even
with the help of a dozen men, I could not
have released him from his imprisonment,
nor could I have done anything to palliate
his agony.
He tried to smile, with gallant and piteous
courage, as I stooped above him.
“It’s no use—I’m going in a moment,” he
whispered. Good-by, Hastane—and tell
Angarth good-by for me, too.”
His tortured lips relaxed, his eyelids
dropped, and his head fell back on the tem¬
ple pavement. With an unreal, dreamlike
horror, almost without emotion, I saw that
he was dead.
The exhaustion that still beset me was too
profound to permit of thought or feeling. It
was like the first reaction that follows the
awakening from a drug debauch. My nerves
were like burnt-out wires, my muscles were
dead and unresponsive as clay, my brain was
ashen and gutted as if a great fire had burned
within it and had gone out.
Somehow, after an interval of whose length
my memory is uncertain, I managed to re¬
vive Angarth, and he sat up dully and dazedly.
When I told him that Ebbonly was dead, my
words appeared to make no impression upon
him. I wondered for awhile if he had under¬
stood. Finally, rousing himself a little with
evident difficulty, he peered at the body of our
friend, and seemed to realize in some measure
the horror of the situation. But I think he
would have remained there for hours, or per¬
haps for all time, in his utter despair and
lassitude, if I had not taken the initiative.
“Come,” I said, with an attempt at firm¬
ness. “We must get out of this.”
“Where to?” he queried, dully. “The Flame
has failed at its source and the Inner Dimen¬
sion is no more. I wish I were dead, like
Ebbonly. I might as well be, judging from
the way I fell.”
“We must find our way back to Crater
Ridge,” I said. “Surely we can do it, if the
inter-dimensional portals have not been des-
Angarth did not seem to hear me, but he
followed obediently when I took him by the
arm and began to seek an exit from the tem¬
ple’s heart among the roofless halls and over¬
turned columns.
My recollections of our return are dim and
confused, and are full of the tediousness of
some interminable delirium. I remember
looking back at Ebbonly, lying white and
still beneath the massive pillar that would
serve as an eternal monument. And I recall
the mountainous ruins of the city, in which
it seemed that we were the only living be¬
ings.
It was a wilderness of chaotic stone, of
fused, obsidianlike blocks, where streams of
molten lava still ran in the mighty chasms, or
poured like torrents adown unfathomable
pits that had opened in the ground. And I
remember seeing amid the wreckage the
charred bodies of those dark colossi who were
the people of Ydmos and the warders of the
Flame.
IKE pygmies lost in some shattered for-
talice of the giants, we stumbled onward,
strangling in mephitic and metallic vapors,
reeling with weariness, dizzy with the heat
that emanated everywhere to surge upon us
in buffeting waves. The way was blocked by
overthrown buildings, by toppled towers and
battlements, over which we climbed precari¬
ously and toilsomely. Often we were com¬
pelled to divagate from our direct course by
enormous rifts that seemed to cleave the
foundations of the world.
The moving towers of the wrathful Outer
Lords had withdrawn, their armies had dis¬
appeared on the plain beyond Ydmos, when
we staggered over the riven and shapeless
and scoriae crags that had formed the city's
ramparts.
Before us there was nothing but desolation
—a fire-blackened and vapor-vaulted expanse
in which no tree or blade of grass remained.
Across this waste we found our way to the
slope of violet grass above the plain, which
had lain beyond the path of the invaders’
bolts. There the guiding monoliths, reared
by a people of whom we were never to learn
even the name, still looked down on the
fuming desert and the mounded wreck of
Ydmos. And there, at length, we came once
more to the grayish-green columns that were
the gateway between the worlds.
1 your ethergrams while you
s out. And don^get so fresh
SCATTERING THE PIECES
By Ken Krueger
.j'sBKsan
er? Our stories, or
HS3K
your letters? Anyway,
—yes. If you had asked
that I could not have ai
may interpret this blunt subtlety any way you
like.) Pamela never appeared in print be¬
fore, except in an advertisement for “The
Great Ego,” which is where you may have
seen her. And you can get lists of fantasy
mags and books from many of the far
they wr
f Turn p
Mystery Fans!
Here’s Your Chance to Obtain
World-Famous Best Sellers
HOW 0N1T 25c EACH AT All STANDS
Ask For These POPULAR LIBRARY Hits
No. 28: THE BURNING COURT, by John
Dickson Carr. A dramatic mystery involving
a weird legend, an arsenic murder and a van¬
ishing corpse.
No. 27: FROM THIS DARK STAIRWAY, by
Mignon G. Eberhart. A Nurse Sarah Keate
mystery packed with thrills and suspense.
No. 26: MR. PINKERTON HAS THE CLUE,
by David Frome. A tense, baffling mystery of
murder by strangulation!
No. 25: OUT OF ORDER, by Phoebe Atwood
Taylor. A fifty-thousand-dollar bet and a mys¬
terious cablegram bring Asey Mayo into a
puzzling case.
No. 24: RENO RENDEZVOUS, by Leslie
Ford. A Colonel Primrose mystery of a peril¬
ous murder trail.
No. 23: S. S. MURDER, by Q. Patrick. Sinis¬
ter death strikes aboard the S. S. Moderna,
luxury liner, on Friday the thirteenth.
No. 22: MURDER MASKS MIAMI, by Rufus
King. A top-flight Lieutenant Valcour mystery
novel.
No. 21: THE AFTER HOUSE, by Mary
Roberts Rinehart. An unseen killer roams a
ship at sea.
No. 20: MURDER IN SHINBONE ALLEY,
by Helen Reilly. An Inspector McKee mystery.
No. 19: THE CROOKED HINGE, by John
Dickson Carr. A breathless novel of murder
STARTING THE YEAR RIGHT
By Charles Broadwell
Thanks, Pee-lot Broadwell, for what you
say about the old space dog. You must meet
my wife sometime and sell her a bill of goods.
About your other comments, you know, if
the senior commander would just give the
old Sarge a free rein, between you kiwis and
me, we could botch up the old craft STAR¬
TLING STORIES in good shape, no?
Let’s get on with the ethergrams, Snaggle-
tooth; I’m running low on Xeno.
THE GOOD OLD DAZE
By Sgt. Jerry A. Mace
d.er°le t t us t bathe^ our ^ha^ds a nd^ intestines 6 wUh° a
HOORAY AND ALSO HIC!
By G. Dallas
•Straight to the (f^oth
om
By WESTBROOK PEGLER
World-Famous Newspaper Columnist
I T CAN’T be true that the American peo¬
ple have to be talked into buying War
Bonds. The people don’t quibble about
interest rates or question the security of the
investment but most of us have never re¬
garded ourselves as important investors and
never study investment as financiers do. We
are savers, but ordinarily we save in pig banks
and savings accounts or through insurance.
It is hard to realize that old Sam could make
use of as little as $18.75 when a tank costs
X-thousands and, for years, we have been
reading of appropriations of millions.
The late Jack Curley, the promoter of
wrestling exhibitions, some of which were
mockeries, but better than the grimmer en¬
deavors of the great hairy, sweaty bodies in
his employ, told a sad story of the end of an
imported performer known as the Terrible
Turk.
The Terrible Turk had made a great for¬
tune wrestling in the United States and con¬
verted it into gold coin and started home.
But, at sea, the ship caught fire and burned
and the Turk was safe in a lifeboat which
w'as about to lower away, when temptation
overcame him. He ran back to his stateroom,
strapped on his money belt and staggered again
to his lifeboat station to discover the boat al¬
ready in the water and drawing away.
Mr. Curley’s Terrible Turk climbed the rail,
leaped for the boat, missed it by yards and sank
like an anvil.
This unhappy experience seems appropriate
to the day’s lesson. If Hitler and Tojo win
this war all of us go straight to the bottom
where the money can’t buy anything.
The common idea is that these bonds back
the soldiers. That is true, but it is truer and
more to the point, that the fighting men are
backing up the bonds, staking their lives to
protect these investments.
THE ETHER VIBRATES
(Continued from page 102)
In short. Kiwi Dallas, you approve of our
Spring voyage. Only . . . and off we go again!
The Spring issue of CAPTAIN FUTURE is
on the newsstands right now. Surely you’ve
snagged a ride by this time. And I hope Au¬
thor Jacobi explains things to you pee-lots.
Personally, I don’t know how Blanchard did
anything in that canal; I was polishing the
rings of Saturn about that time. Yeah, with
Xeno, and I do mean those bubbly, iridescent
and evanescent rings which emanate from the
point of the nose.
STARTLING IS EXCITING
By Joseph Hassid
t. And since when have we had a St.
trick’s holiday series of covers from which
x must have a respite? For further obser-
For further c
is on the cover, see the opening f
s of this department.
, honey chile;
here comes another gal pee-lot with a gripe
about the self-same cover—and with a lot less
gra B P u h t S d°^ iS fe d e? P S
SHORT AND SWEET
By Frann Miescher
Let’s take another look at the Spring cover
of STARTLING STORIES. Gee-strings and
stars in the tropics . . . fur muffs in sub¬
arctic temperatures. Ah, yes, that blazing
scene does indicate the need of furs, doesn’t
it? Reminds the old Sarge of a sunset on
Pluto—and I do mean the Pluto of Roman
mythology. Just who is a wee bit daft in
print, my dear ?
The old Sarge is beginning to think that
most of you kiwis liked THE GREAT EGO
better^ than medium. We’ll have to ask Au-
Now all you juniors wrap yourselves back
snugly in your chains, for here comes a gal
pee-lot, and the old Sarge wants to hear what
NIGHTMARE COVER
By Virginia Lelake
:i I ■■ l. • I ini'. . . -I" , M !!\ lh,- cov.
thfnk 'l
FT A IN 'ft vf l J
CAFTAI>
green Snakes?—/sf a jv
iksk
as an you space monKeys Know, tne oic
Sarge rarely speaks sharply to any of his gal
: p S a ar:r: s s
MOTORDROME BUZZINGS
By Motorcycle Joe
DANIELS IS GOOD
[Turn page]
NEXT ISSUE’S HEADLINERS
SHADOW
OUER
TOURS
An Amazing
Complete Novel
By LEIGH BRACKETT
THE DAY OF THE
BEAST
A Hall of Fame Classic
By D. D. SHARP
•
PLUS MANY OTHER STORIES AND
FEATURES
You may be sitting pretty
now,,, but,..
AFTER WAR,WHAT?
You are probably sitting pretty now. Almost
anyone can get a fair job with good money.
But when peace comes, when millions of
men come out of the army and navy, when
industry converts back—where will you be?
There will be keen competition between
companies and readjustments of many jobs.
Will you be one whom industry labels “Must
Keep”—even lists for promotion?
You can be by thorough preparation now.
And you can prepare in spare time, without
a moment’s interruption of your present
SPRING STARTLING SEEMS SAD
By Chad Oliver
You may now crawl back into the nut-and-
bolt bin, Kiwi Oliver. It seems from the
about 0f ST°ART < ^NG nl S U TO t KI t ES h |s booking
• Yrore 1 f r^m "looking forward 3 ," that’s 0 swell!
' use calling your attention to the nice
where you’re going.
tor*isn’t Tore; P it’s 'jTst ^heTeTeTbTration^f
the anvil chorus in the aggregate which makes
over my head.
I might say here that there are lots and
lots of ethergrams still dangling from the
pla"nts eS f7om Z peLlots lik^Ray ‘ K?rdfn, Kem
Bone, Guy Trucano, Jr.-and many others,
some of whom have never written in before.
I'd like mighty well to print reams of such
letters (and the old space dog doesn’t mind
letting you little beasts rip the quivering car-
smart 1 i^your* ethergrams 0 iT'yoTTaTTto
OF THIS AND THAT
By Joe Kennedy
It’s the patented filter with its 66 mesh-
screen baffles, that whirlcools the smoke
—retains flakes and slugs—absorbs
moisture—minimizes raw mouth and
tongue bite. When filter is discolored, it
has done its job. Discard it and put in a
fresh one—costs only ONE CENT. En¬
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Cigarette and Cigar Holders.
fellow from
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now and send us your favorite snapshot or
today, as supplies are limited.
DEAN STUDIOS, Dept. 811
211 West 7th Street • Des Moines,
See what I mean, Junior? Without dashes,
question marks, exclamation points and a few
phoneticized gurgles, Pee-lot Joe would be
as speechless as a tongue-tied man at a church
circle. But never mind, Kiwi Joe, you sprin¬
kled some interesting chatter here and there
throughout your communique. The old Sarge
will leave most of it for the rest of you junior
astrogators to kick around until dark.
We beat you to the draw on Leigh Brackett,
didn’t we? Her SHADOW OVER MARS is
coming up next issue. As for the others, we
do the best we can to get stories from favorite
authors, but there’s a war going on, and many
of our writers and artists are working type¬
writers (both kinds) and painting camouflage
for Uncle Sam nowadays.
This concludes the class for this voyage.
Take over the dog watch, kiwis; the old Sarge
has to knock the neck off a fresh Xeno bot¬
tle. Happy spacings.to you little ogres.
—SERGEANT SATURN.
IMPORTANT NOTICE
Wartime paper rationing makes it impossible to
print enough copies of this magazine to meet the de¬
mand. To be sure of getting YOUR copy, place a
standing order with your regular newsdealer.
America’s Best Dime’s Worth
of Picture Entertainment
108
Now on Sale at All Stands
Manly Wade Wellman Probes
the Unknown
I ONG ere this most of you scientifiction
* fans have learned facts about this issue’s
1 novelist. But for the benefit of those
who have never heard any of the interesting
highlights in the career of Manly Wade Well¬
man, author of STRANGERS ON THE
HEIGHTS, here is a thumbnail biography.
Manly Wade Wellman was born in the
jungly interior of Portuguese West Africa,
MANLY WADE WELLMAN
long enough ago to make him too old for
present service in Army, Navy or Marine
Corps. His parents were native Americans j
on a medical assignment to a mission sta¬
tion, and he came to America to go to school,
in a number of cities north, south, east and
Growing up, he tried briefly such profes¬
sions as farm-handing, soldiering, bouncing
in a dance hall, bookselling, newspaper re¬
porting and editing. Finally he got to be six
feet two, very heavily built in proportion, and
a writer of science fiction.
He lives in Westwood, New Jersey, with
his wife, son, and cat, and considers it worth
while to pass on these remarks anent the
writing of STRANGERS ON THE
HEIGHTS:
influences on^ human
i h didn’t writing
. I had three
g me from the
>e from death,
ned over with
[Turn page ]
SONG POEMS WANTED
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THRILLS IN SCIENCE
(Concluded from page 82)
the construction of his super-strong arch
came from the figure of a spider’s circular
web, the theory of increasing the strength
of matter by dividing and combining it, there¬
by causing it to act over a larger space than
it would occupy in a solid state.
The iron bridge, of course, has long since
been replaced by steel, but steel and steel
cables came after the time of Thomas Paine,
and only improved the quality of the building
material. There has been no change in the
basic principles underlying the invention of
Thomas Paine, American patriot.
Thus, to the world that little realized its
debt, Thomas Paine presented the modern
bridge design for the traffic of the future.
Indeed a builder of bridges, this man of gen¬
ius who built of iron a bridge for the feet,
and built of words, a bridge for the mind—
bridges of freedom for mankind to tread!
MORE THRILLS IN SCIENCE NEXT ISSUE!
"Never mind wrapping
our Army needs the paperl"
Right, Mrs. Jones! Practically every one of the
700,000 different items convoyed to our boys
is wrapped for protection in paper or papers
board or both!
The war need for paper grows daily: Current
paper production cannot meet this steadily
mounting demand unless you and every other
man and woman join Mrs. Jones
in using less paper at the store, in
your office, at home;
This and other magazines, although using
only 5 per cent of the paper supply, are
saving 450 million pounds of paper this
year —to release it for vital war needs .
REVIEW OE THE
SCIENCE FICTION
FAN PUBLICATIONS
By
SERGEANT SATURN
G ATHER around the chart table, my lit¬
tle space chickadees, and don’t grab.
Wait until the old Sarge passes out the
assignments. This voyage we have quite an
assortment of this and that for the delecta¬
tion of all you little ogres.
Before we roll up our sleeves, tilt the
Xeno jug and get down to the business of
briefing the present cargo of fanzines, your
senior astrogator has a couple of comments
to make. Probably you pee-lots will call
them announcements.
First, I want to thank Connor and Robin¬
son for their FANEWSCARD WEEKLY.
This weekly postal, while not qualifying as
a fanzine for review, certainly keeps us
posted on bits of news. All you kiwis who are
interested in what goes on with fellow fans
will enjoy it. The address is 6636 S. Sacra¬
mento, Chicago 29, Ill.
Next we have a notice from Francis T.
Laney, publisher of THE ACOLYTE, that
he has, with all equipment, moved to Los
Angeles where he has taken a war job in an
airplane plant, and THE ACOLYTE must be
temporarily suspended. However, you can
look for No. 6 shortly.
We hear from the publishers of MIDGE
that it is going to increase its price and
change its form. New subscription price—
30 for 65c henceforth.
And last, but not least—if you get what
I mean—I want to thank the gang at Shan¬
gri-La for the artwork contributed by the
Gargantua Grapefruit Growers of Southern
California. The old Sarge is crazy about
grapefruit, no foolin’.
And now to the regular vivisection.
ARCANA, 256 26th Ave., San Francisco 21,
Calif. Editor, Harry Honig. Tri-annual. 10c
per copy, 3 issues for 25c.
Nice, job of 26 p
t.'d.
.-.. — - -(led nude dodging
ionized snowflakes while her bath sponge explodes
in upper left-hand corner. The lines of the nude
on page 15 aren't bad, either. This girl does the
grave-yard scene from Hamlet with a dozen Yoricks.
Count ’em for yourself. Good job. Editor Honig.
BEOWULF, 9 Bogert Place, Westwood,
N. J. Editor, Gerry de la Ree, Jr. First
[Turn page ]
PROVES VITAL ZONE SPOTLESS
AND FREE FROM “G00”-no maffer
how often you smoke it! ISnf
HESSOII GUARD
MILANO
POEMS WANTED
r song poem today for
has had over 325 songs published. Our new 6*step
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SCREENLAND RECORDERS
DEPT. C HOLLYWOOD 28. CALIFORNIA
—
fSational^ehwS ^
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YOU ARE UNDER ARREST!
SATURNALIA.
STAPLECON.
VOM, Box 6475 Metro Station, Los Angeles
14, Calif. Published by Snafucius Publica¬
tions. 15c per copy, seven for $1. Issued the
first of every so often.
THE VULCAN. Route 1, Ripley, Tenn. Edi¬
tor, Lionel Innman. Approximately bi-month¬
ly. 10c per copy, three for 25c.
Now I’m a bit dizzy, and if you don’t mind,
I’ll toddle off to my bunk. Somebody else’ll
have to take the dog-watch. Wart-ears, wheel
in a fresh case of Xeno and adjust the siphon
tube.
Wake me up after we pass Pluto’s orbit
on the swing back for Earth. I want to grab
for the merry-go-round ring when we coast
by Saturn. And if any other of you little
ogres have any fanzines you want reviewed
next issue, be sure to get ’em in early.
Remember, I like pretty pictures!
—SERGEANT SATURN.
OLlQLy
W in 9 !
BUY WAR BONDS AND STAMPS
Regularly!
INSTITUTE OF APPLIED SCIENCE
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Can tip the balance of some far-off battle
Not yet fought...
And make the Victory certain—
Where it is only hoped for now.
He stays. Day upon day, he stays
and meets the test...
With purpose clear... and with sense
'of honored duty well performed.
He is a Clear-Headed American.
He knows that minutes count.
Each one is precious to himself—
But precious more
To those who fight, and bleed, and die.
Minutes in which another turning
of the wheel..
Another weapon fashioned...
Another shell made ready for its task...
Published in the interest of the home front war effort., .by the makers of Calvert
CALVERT DISTILLERS CORPORATION, NEW YORK CITY
SALUTE TO A CLEAR-HEADED AMERICAN
The Worker Who Stays On The Job
Another ^con
from
Qvent Qteen
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